Halcyon
by JinnySkeans
Summary: The war is over, but conflict rages within Konoha. The only way to keep the Will of Fire burning bright is to learn the difference between revenge and redemption...and decide which is worth fighting for. Sasuke/Sakura.
1. Worth It

Spring had reached Konoha.

With warm, balmy winters bleeding gradually into hot sunny summers, there was not always a terribly noticeable difference between the seasons, but the sun was warm and light on her skin, and Sakura welcomed the light breeze that came in through the window of her office and teased her hair.

A quick glance outside, and she saw the familiar sight of a village in the midst of repair. Most of the buildings demolished during Pein's invasion were reconstructed, and were in the process of being washed and repainted. Now that all the shinobi had returned home from the war, and things were relatively quiet around the village, most of their time could be devoted to fixing what was broken.

Sakura's heart clenched at the memory of what had been won, and what had been lost. As green eyes studied an older gentleman on a ladder, paintbrush in hand and a smile on his face, she was reminded of what they had fought so hard for.

And that the job was nowhere near complete.

Sakura sighed and ran a hand through her soft pink hair, which had grown several inches over the past few weeks. She was a kunoichi, and kunoichi should be fearless, and in battle, Sakura was. In the operating room, she was confident and self-assured.

But in the political field, she was frightened and nervous. She felt like an erring little genin all over again, because what she was planning was dangerous. Treason. If she was unsuccessful, the consequences would be dire.

Thinking of everything that could go wrong did nothing to help her nerves, but Sakura was a seasoned kunoichi, and she had to consider every possible outcome before making her move. There was nothing wrong with a little extra caution.

Especially when the issue was one of political revolt.

_It's the right thing to do,_ she thought, hoping the knowledge that what she was planning was in everyone's best interest would bolster her self-confidence. _It's the only way to change the way things are run around here._

Sakura was a medic-nin. This was not her area of expertise, but someone had to get the ball rolling. She'd lost friends in the war, loyal comrades. She'd lost her innocence, her childhood. She'd seen more death and destruction in the medical tents than on any news program on television, more carnage in a handful of hours than in her five years as an active kunoichi.

She'd seen the results of deception and paranoia played out on a battlefield, with her loved ones as pawns in a chess game no one seemed to know the rules to.

It would be difficult, she knew, to convince the others, perhaps impossible. She would be met with hostility, distrust, suspicion; if the wrong people caught wind of what she was scheming, she would be arrested, interrogated, exiled. Maybe executed.

She swallowed hard and tried to slow her racing heartbeat. She knew she needed to compose herself; it would not do to approach the Hokage with this reckless idea in any visible state of distress. With a heavy sigh that wracked through her body, she sank into her desk chair.

Her eyes were drawn automatically to a framed photo on her desk, half-hidden by scrolls and papers and clipboards and medical texts. A slight smile tilted Sakura's lips as she brushed some of the clutter aside and took the photo in her hands to examine it for the millionth time.

It was Team 7's most recent official photo. Taken a few weeks prior following a successful mission by an insistent Tsunade, it showed all active members of Team Kakashi: herself in the center, smiling brightly; a crinkle-eyed Kakashi, face nearly hidden by his ever-present mask and a little orange book in hand; Sai, with a genuine grin on his pale face; of course Naruto, beaming with all the strength of the sun, blue eyes bright with happiness.

And there was Sasuke, newly-minted Konoha shinobi, staring at the camera with apathy in his dark eyes, ignoring Naruto's arm slung jubilantly around his shoulder. The metal of his hitai-ate caught the light.

Sakura was reminded again why what she was planning was so very important.

Seeing the faces of her boys, _all_ of her boys, made her remember why this was worth more than her fears, more than her apprehensions. Some things were worth risking your life for, and her family was one of those things.

Buoyed with a new resolve, she pressed a quick kiss to the picture in her hands and replaced it lovingly on her desk. She stood up, her chair scraping on the floor, and straightened her hair and her clothes before leaving her office.

It was a short walk to Hokage Tower, and Sakura hoped her new-found resolution would last the whole way.

* * *

The mission was successful, of course.

There weren't many dangerous missions lately, given the near-universal desire for peace not only in Konoha, but among the other nations. Sasuke supposed that this was a good thing, but time had made him a realist, and he knew that it wouldn't last long.

Humans thrived on conflict, for as much as they reviled it.

His footfalls were light and relaxed on the dirt path. There was no hurry to return to Konoha, having made such good time from Suna over the past several days. Delivering a statement of Konoha's progression to the Kazekage had been a relatively effortless venture, save for the agonizing heat of Sunagakure, something Sasuke could safely say he hated.

He'd learned to let go of his hatred, but he felt there was nothing wrong with openly despising the scorching temperatures of the desert village. Why, or how, anyone could live there with any degree of happiness was beyond him.

No, he much preferred Konoha's balmy climate, and he wouldn't admit it aloud, but he always missed the thick growth of trees peppering the roads the nearer he drew to home.

There was still some lingering tension between himself and the word 'home.' He'd put any animosity towards Konoha itself behind him; after the war, and the soul-searching, and confrontations with Itachi and Naruto had leveled the foundations of his logic, he could freely admit that Konoha was not to blame for his family tragedy.

But knowing that he served a village run by the very people who'd authorized the extermination of the Uchiha Clan did not sit right with him.

He'd let go of his hatred, but his bitterness looked like it was here to stay.

He sighed, shoving his hands in his pockets and allowing himself to enjoy the cool breeze that pushed through his hair. A reflexive scan of his surroundings revealed no bandits, no rogue-nin, no one who might attempt (foolishly) to attack him, but he was a seasoned shinobi; at 17, he was a reformed criminal, a war veteran, a killer. He knew better than to relax his guard even in moments of peacetime, like this.

It was such an easy mission, he almost _wished_ for a fight, just for something to do.

As he cleared the hill, he made out the gates to Konoha in the distance. Relief, however fleeting, made itself known to him as he thought about the village: even if he resented the elders, Konoha was still home to his family.

A family that consisted of three aggravating shinobi, and one annoying kunoichi, who would meet him for ramen that evening at Ichiraku.

That seemed worth coming home to.

* * *

Sakura did not pause to collect her bearings outside Tsunade's office. She did not take a moment to compose herself, or try to give herself one last-minute pep talk on why the pros of this venture outweighed the cons.

Instead, she knocked on the door immediately, before losing what resolve she'd gained from thinking of her Team 7 family, and was answered by a loud, "Come in, don't just stand there."

Sakura smiled as she stepped inside the Hokage's office. Tsunade was at her desk, looking unusually busy surrounded by mountains of paperwork, her pen moving rapidly across an important-looking document. She glanced up at her visitor, and immediately returned the smile upon seeing who it was.

"Sakura," she said in greeting. "I'm surprised to see you here…Uchiha's due back from Suna today, and Naruto and Kakashi from border patrol tonight. I thought for sure you'd want to meet them."

"I will, later. But I had something…important I wanted to talk to you about."

Tsunade laid down her pen and nodded to the seat in front of her desk, which Sakura took upon invitation.

"What is it? Problems at the hospital? How are the new nurses working out?"

"Oh, everything's going well enough," Sakura replied, thinking of the new hospital hires she and Shizune had been tirelessly training. "They're new, but dedicated. Learning. But that's not what I wanted to talk to you about."

"So serious," Tsunade observed teasingly, but when Sakura did not smile, she must have recognized the importance of her former apprentice's visit, and laced her fingers together. "All right, then, what's this all about?"

"Before I tell you," Sakura said slowly, cautiously, "I want to let you know that…I trust you more than anyone else in the world, except maybe Naruto. And what I'm about to say is…I know it's going to sound terrible at first, but I…"

"Before you continue," Tsunade interjected, "I'll make something plain to you, if I haven't already. I trust your judgment implicitly, Sakura. You have proven yourself to me time and time again."

Sakura was touched. Her mentor did not dote upon her, did not show favoritism, and praise was hard won. To hear Tsunade speak so freely of their mutual trust bolstered her confidence somewhat, and she smiled gratefully.

"Thank you. I just ask that you hear me out till the end, Shishou. And know that you're the only person I've told about this."

Tsunade nodded with an encouraging smile.

And Sakura began.

"We need a new Council."

* * *

**Note.** Well, I'm trying my hand at an in-universe SasuSaku story. I took down my story One Last Chance because I should have considered the story in its entirety before putting it up; some of the themes will be restructured into this story instead, since I have the whole idea in mind this time and I'm not flying blind.

Let me know what you think :)


	2. What's Right

Alone, in the Hokage's office, two women regarded each other with a desk and years of experience separating them.

"What you're proposing," Tsunade said slowly, after a measured pause, "could be construed as treason. Actually, it _is_ treason, and were anyone to hear you speak of such a thing..."

"It's what's right, Tsunade-shishou." Sakura did not often press matters when it came to her old master, but she was doing exactly that now. Back ramrod straight, eyes serious, jaw set. Determined, stubborn. "The council have outgrown their utility, corrupted their own power. We need to replace them. We need to start over."

Tsunade was silent as she stared at her former apprentice. Seventeen and a war veteran, full of _so much talent_ and a heart that had been trampled upon, broken, but continued to fix itself. Tsunade would never admit it, but she admired her former student perhaps as much as Sakura admired her.

She laced her fingers together and leaned back in her chair.

"And who would this...new council...consist of, should this even be a possibility?" she asked coolly.

Sakura smiled a little nervously, but it was a smile all the same. "Well..."

* * *

Without needing to look, Sasuke knew that the kunai had struck its target in the battered old practice dummy.

It was mindless, numbing, repetitive work, flinging weapons at targets like some snot-nosed Academy student, but anything that kept his hands busy was preferred to spending long, bitter nights at his flat on the outskirts of Konoha.

The Uchiha District had been destroyed, levelled and no one had thought to repair it. Sasuke might have been bitter about that, but he knew better than anyone that there was no sense in wasting time, money, and effort to restore a ghost district. No one lived there anymore. No one would ever live there again.

It was better off destroyed.

He hurled a handful of senbon at the dummy and watched dully as they sank into the dummy's left eye, in quick succession.

It was still odd, attending Team 7 training sessions a year later. Despite his return and subsequent pardon from an angry but understanding Tsunade, Sasuke had expected something different, something else. Something besides Naruto's instant acceptance, delight at having his best friend back in the ranks. Something besides Kakashi sparing him a crinkled eyed smile after his release from prison and overseeing their training sessions like they were thirteen, and nothing had changed.

Something besides a quiet smile and nothing more, from Sakura.

He'd tried to kill all of them. More than one time. He'd planned on taking off Kakashi's head, opening Naruto's throat, snapping Sakura's neck; in the haze of his anger, bloodlust, unfettered rage, he had looked into the faces of his old comrades, the people he'd known and fought with and loved-even-if-he'd-never-say-so, and seen his own darkness reflected back at him, wearing the skins of Konoha nin.

Guilt churned his stomach and on reflex, he hurled his windmill shuriken at the dummy and was surprised to see its head snap clean off.

Even seventeen and rehabilitated in the eyes of the village he'd once sought to destroy, Sasuke's greatest skill was in his natural ability to annihilate.

"Oi, teme!"

The familiar greeting prickled at his nerves, but Naruto had long lost his ability to aggravate Sasuke significantly. Now, it seemed, that particular talent lay exclusively with Haruno Sakura, the New and Improved version who got under his skin in all the worst ways.

He looked up and muttered, "Dobe," as his best friend (that he'd never say) made his way cheerfully towards the dummy he was demolishing in the middle of Training Ground Three.

"Geez," Naruto whistled, glancing at the severed head lying ten yards from its body. "You could use a hobby, teme. Or a girlfriend."

Sasuke rolled his eyes and drew his sword instead, content to tune out Naruto for the duration of their 'training session,' or whatever it was that Naruto called it, when he came to annoy Sasuke and infringe upon his solitude.

The cold metal felt familiar in his hands, almost comforting. Sasuke was an expert swordsman, and while he could efficiently wield any weapon from kunai to senbon to chakra, he felt most comfortable, most invincible when he carried Kusanagi, perhaps the only thing to come out of his training with Orochimaru that he didn't regret hanging on to.

Naruto, however, would not be ignored.

"You seen Sakura-chan, teme?" he asked, looking about the sparse training ground for some sign of the lone female member of Team 7.

The mention of her name prickled something within him, but he didn't care to speculate on what that was.

"No."

He raised his sword and began the motions of a practice kata, but Naruto was persistent.

"I ain't seen her all day, it's weird. I checked the hospital but they said she was off for the day, and she wasn't at home and none of the others have seen her. She might have a mission, but she definitely would've said something before leaving."

"Hn."

"So you haven't seen her?"

"No, dobe," Sasuke snapped. "Answer's still no. I don't know where she is."

Naruto rolled his eyes and lay down on the grass. "I don't know for sure why you get so touchy whenever anyone brings her up, but if you want my theory..."

"I don't," Sasuke growled.

"...I'd say it's cuz you like her."

"Not this again."

"Denial, denial, whatever...I'm just saying, if you see her, let me know, yeah? Granny wants me to get checked out after my last mission and-"

"You don't want any of the other doctors at the hospital to do it," Sasuke finished. He could easily understand this; shinobi, even hardened, powerful ones, shared a universal dislike (he refused to use the word "fear") of hospitals. The members of Team 7 (himself, Naruto, Kakashi, and Sai) patently refused to be examined and healed by anyone besides Sakura.

Naruto shuddered.

"There's that one creepy nurse there, the big one with the big needles? She's got it out for me. I feel like the old lady puts her up to it to punish me or some shit. And-"

The dobe continued to drivel on, and Sasuke resigned himself to it, returning to his mindless exercises with his mindless best friend prattling on in his ear.

* * *

11 people, she would need to convince.

Sakura had faith in herself and in her idea. She wasn't sure how, but she _knew_ it was the right move.

The problem lay with the execution.

Tsunade had handled the proposal well, all things considered. Sakura knew that her mentor trusted her implicitly, and far from outright rejecting what she'd said the moment she'd said it, she'd withheld judgment and asked for all the details.

Even if what Sakura was saying could implicate her as a traitor. It was grounds for arrest, perhaps exile or even execution.

_"You want to reorganize the council," Tsunade murmured. Amber eyes were hard as they stared her down, but Sakura didn't flinch._

_"No, Shishou...I want to overthrow it," she returned quietly but not shakily. "I want to start over, with a new council. Elected democratically, comprised entirely of young, ACTIVE shinobi and kunoichi concerned with keeping peace in Konoha, and between our fellow Nations."_

_"And what brought this on, Sakura? Think carefully before you speak."_

_"Our Council is corrupt," Sakura said flatly. She knew it was true; the Uchiha Massacre was proof enough of that. "They are made up of older shinobi, many of whom are retired from active duty. They don't know what we know in the field, what we've seen. They operate differently than we do, and things need to change, if we're going to preserve this peace."_

_Tsunade let her finish._

_"I would tentatively nominate the Konoha 12," Sakura said softly. "We're diverse, and a cross-section of what Konoha has to offer in terms of its shinobi."_

_"Explain."_

_"There's Naruto, of course," Sakura began listing on her fingers. "Whose father was Namikaze Minator, the Fourth Hokage...Naruto houses Kyuubi, knows Sage jutsu, and...let's face it...will become Hokage, when you decide to step down."_

_Was that a smirk on Tsunade's face?_

_"Then there's Hinata and Neji, of the Hyuuga Clan," she continued. "Both of whom have mastered the Byakugan and can pass it down to future generations, in addition to being extremely skilled, loyal ninja without whom we couldn't have won the war._

_"Shino, of the Aburame Clan, skilled in tracking, along with Kiba of the Inuzuka Clan, from Team Kurenai. Yamanaka Ino, from the Interrogation Department. Nara Shikamaru, from the Strategy and Tactics Division. Chouji of the Akimichi Clan, all of them part of Ino-Shika-Cho._

_"Rock Lee, naturally, with his mastery of taijutsu, and his teammate Tenten, with her mastery of weaponry. Uchiha Sasuke-" Here Tsunade's gaze became marginally sharper. "-of the Uchiha Clan. And-"_

_"What about Uchiha?" Tsunade demanded. "He's barely a year out of prison, Sakura, or did you forget?"_

_"I didn't," Sakura said fiercely. "You pardoned him, Shishou."_

_"I did. But to have the boy ascend to a seat of power so soon after his sentence was lifted? What are you playing at?"_

_"Prior to the Council's authorization of the extermination of the Uchiha Clan," Sakura returned, "the Uchiha served as Konoha's Military Police Department. They saw to it that the streets were kept safe, that any wrongdoing was reported and that criminals were dealt with accordingly. Sasuke is...he could do all of that. He could. Even if people don't quite trust him...his first instinct has always been to protect."_

_Sakura trailed off, deep in thought and somewhat forgetting that Tsunade was in the room at all. She did not get along well with Sasuke lately (the various implications of that were not lost on her, but she had no time to dwell on them) and she did not entirely trust him (it was a difficult but honest thing to admit), but Sakura knew if they were ever going to purge Konoha of its corruption, they would need Sasuke to accomplish it._

_Tsunade jolted her back to reality._

_"And what about you?"_

_"I run the hospital," she replied automatically. "I'm in charge of the Medical Corps. I understand that, because this is my idea, people would be suspicious that I would want to instate myself in a position of power so I'm more than willing not to include myself, if it will help the cause. And we would want to keep you as Hokage, Tsunade-shishou. Absolutely. You weren't involved in the Uchiha Massacre, and-"_

_"Is that what this boils down to, Sakura?" Tsunade demanded, and Sakura flinched at her tone. "You're in this to help Uchiha? Is that your angle?"_

_Sakura waited a moment to collect her thoughts, before answering honestly._

_"Shishou, I'm disgusted just like everyone else who knows about it, with the results of the Uchiha Massacre. The Uchiha WERE planning a coup...but before the matter could be solved diplomatically, three people authorized the extermination of an entire family in Konoha. They ordered Uchiha Itachi to murder his clan and take the brunt of the blame. And because Sasuke's my teammate, I'm very, very angry about that, and sad to be a part of a village that operates in such darkness._

_"But this is about more than Sasuke."_

_Tsunade cocked an eyebrow._

_"I was there, in the medical tent during the war," Sakura said softly, as thousands of images passed through her mind; a genin of no more than twelve, dying before he was laid out on the operating table; a shinobi with a family back home to support, and both his legs blown off; an aging kunoichi with her innards torn from her and laid bare in the medical tent._

_"And I was on the frontlines, fighting with the rest, and...and what I've seen is...we are the inheritors of a world that turns in on itself. Prior to this war, we considered Mist to be our enemies, we formed a recent armistice with Sand and scorned Lightning...we never trusted each other, before we had to._

_"And now we have a chance to preserve that trust not just between nations, but amongst ourselves. And if we're going to do that, we have to be able to trust each other. We have to have a common goal. And the present Council," Sakura's voice grew stronger here, "is a danger to the peace we've built and are trying to preserve. They have to be tried for their crimes and replaced with a new generation."_

_Tsunade said nothing for a long while. Then, she leaned back in her chair and laughed._

_"You know what, Sakura? I think you might be onto something. And let's just be glad that you're so necessary to the medical squad...I shudder to think what you'd be capable of if you took up politics!"_

Tsunade spent the rest of the conversation warning Sakura about the dangers of what she was proposing to do. But Sakura knew the risks, and was willing to take them.

Anything was better than watcihng another innocent child die in the name of honor.

There was no honor in authorizing children to kill their parents. There was no honor in claiming to be protecting peace and promoting prosperity, while building an underground army to set loose upon the people they claimed to be trying to protect, as Danzou had done. There was no honor in double-dealing from the shadows and sending innocents to accomplish their dirty work.

Having a fresh new perspective on Konoha and its relationships with its sister nations was best. All of them had participated in the war. All of them had seen the death and destruction, the blood and the sorrow and the fear and...

And the hope. There was nothing stronger in the world than that. They banded together as one, all these shinobi who had once warred among themselves, against a danger that threatened to wipe them all from existence.

It was dangerous, what she was planning. If she were caught, the consequences would be dire.

But there were things worth dying for, and Sakura knew that peace was one of them.

She knew exactly who she'd go to first.

* * *

Sasuke reached the front door of his flat more tired than he felt like he should be, considering that all he'd done all day was play around with weapons and spar with his lunkhead best friend. A shower, quick dinner, and early night in seemed apropos.

He stepped inside and shut the door behind him without bothering to lock it. Anyone stupid enough to try and break into his house would be dealt with easily, and it was lingering arrogance from his childhood that left it unlocked almost as an invitation to trouble.

A quick hot shower loosened the tense muscles in his arms and legs but did nothing for the knot in his back. Mildly annoyed, he dressed quickly in shorts and a T-shirt before heading down to his kitchen to make something to eat.

Just as he reached for the cabinet, however, he heard a knock at the door.

Damn it. Who could be calling this time of night?

A quick glance at the clock told him it was well after eleven. Naruto never bothered knocking, he always just let himself in and took over Sasuke's life, along with the rest of their friends, except Sakura, who hadn't visited him in months. Kakashi would just poof into the room if he wanted to see Sasuke, and if he had a mission, an ANBU would deliver him the scroll inside.

Aggravated, and silently vowing that if it was some tittering twit fangirl hoping for an autograph, he'd be going right back to prison for murder, he stalked to the front door and ripped it open with more force than strictly necessary.

Who it was, surprised him completely.

"Um, hey Sasuke."

His angry expression melted away, replaced with one of suspicion.

"Sakura."

She looked nervous. Her hair was thrown up in a careless ponytail and she looked a little paler than normal. Shiny green eyes reflected worry.

"What's wrong," he wanted to know. "Do we have a mission?"

"A mission? Um, no, not that...I just...wanted to talk to you about something. Do you have a minute?"

Sasuke was understandably wary. He and Sakura were teammates, and he might consider her a friend, but that was where it ended. She made no attempt to see him outside of missions and practices, even seemed to avoid him, and that was understandable, given their history. Their few interactions were usually brief and somewhat antagonistic, given Fancy New Sakura's penchant for arguing with him at every turn, and his inability not to argue back.

Sakura, showing up on his doorstep in the middle of the night wanting to _talk?_

"It's...it's sort of...important," she continued, apparently interpreting his wariness for rejection.

Sensing that he was going to regret this somehow, Sasuke opened the door wider in silent invitation, and Sakura inclined her head before entering his apartment.

His eyes traced her movements as he followed her into the kitchen. She clearly had something on her mind, considering the lack of absent chatter, and she was tense, if her stiff shoulders was any indication. They stepped inside and Sakura murmured, "I interrupted your dinner. Ugh, I'm sorry, Sasuke, I know it's late and everything, I just...this has to stay between us, for now."

She looked up to face him and he sort of knew what was coming.

He really hoped this wasn't a continuation of his last night in Konoha, prior to his defection. Neither one of them had ever spoken of that night to anyone (as far as he knew) and especially to each other, and Sasuke was completely satisfied with that arrangement. Being reminded of what a coward he'd been was something he'd rather avoid, but perhaps this years-long wait for some type of reaction from him was what Sakura was looking for.

He opened his mouth to say something, but she cut him off.

"I need you to just listen to me, and when I'm all done, tell me what you think okay?" she said nervously. She fiddled with her pink elbow protector as she spoke, and he raised his eyebrows, quickly running out of patience for whatever _this_ was.

"What is it, Sakura."

"I wanted to talk to you about-"

_Here it comes,_ he thought, bracing himself for the onslaught of tears and heartfelt confessions, and-

"-replacing the Konoha Council."

Sasuke was dumbstruck. Not only had he been completely off the mark, but to hear such a thing spoken...and by _Sakura,_ no less...

"What?" he managed.

"I said, listen first," Sakura said, temper flaring, and he could easily see that he frustrated her as effortlessly as she frustrated him, and part of him wondered why that was. "I was talking to Tsunade-shishou today, and..."

"You told the _Hokage_ you want to replace the _Council._"

"Damn it, Sasuke, you don't speak more than a hundred words in a year, and when I need you to shut your mouth and listen to me, _now _you can't stop talking?" Sakura's nervousness was gone, replaced instantly with anger, and Sasuke's temper rose proportionally.

"You're suicidal if you think you can pull this off," he shot back. "As an Uchiha I can tell you what the Council does with people who don't agree with their methods."

The truth about the Uchiha Massacre hung in the air between them like a cloud of smog. But far from detract Sakura, whom he expected to begin stuttering out apologies after the mention of his family, it seemed to ignite her resolve even further.

"That's exactly my point, Sasuke, don't you get it? Don't you _hate_ the fact that after everything that's happened, everything they've done, they're still in power and you're still taking orders from them?"

"Of course I do," he said impatiently, "but I thought _revenge_ wasn't the right way to go."

She was infuriating him, and he wasn't exactly sure why.

"It isn't," she snapped, the glint in her eyes almost spiteful. "It _never_ is. But this isn't _about_ revenge, Sasuke, it's about justice!"

"What do you know about _anything,_ Sakura? Jesus. Just go home."

"Never thought I'd see _Uchiha Sasuke_ scared of doing the right thing," she hissed. And the way she said his name made him see red, because _who was she_ to speak so scornfully of him?

"You know what?" she snapped, grabbing her bag from off the table. "This was such a fucking waste of time. I tried, Sasuke. But you couldn't even hear me out. _Stupid._ At least do me the fucking courtesy of not opening your mouth to anyone about what I've said."

"Tch. Like I'd tell anyone you're _crazy._"

"Thanks so much, asshole."

Sasuke bristled and opened his mouth to retort, but Sakura had already stormed past him out the front door.

* * *

**note..** Hello, you precious few who have been bothering with this story :) I'm slowly, slowly finding inspiration for everything again, so I'm plunging forward with this multichaptered, in-universe story and I really, really hope I can pull it off. Let me know what you think!

xoxo Daisy :)

Go Phillies!


	3. Ruminate

It was impossibly stupid of her, to have started with Sasuke.

This was her only thought as she stalked away from his house, eyes blazing, blood simmering hot in her veins. She should have gone to somebody else first with her idea.

Sasuke was an expert in tearing her down. It was one of his most polished skills. At least, if she had approached someone else of the Konoha 12 with her proposal to begin with, she would have a little more confidence in herself and what she was doing. But Sasuke, true to form, pointed out all the fallacies in her idea and left her feeling insecure about it.

_He's such a jerk!_ She thought angrily. _This could be a fresh start for him, a chance to get rid of the people who ordered the massacre of his family and make Konoha what it SHOULD be, but all he does is poke holes in everything and make this into a joke!_

Sasuke, unforunately, was right about several things. Chief among them, how this could get her killed. She knew she could count on him at least keeping the secret between them, even if he wasn't on board, but to say she felt more confident in what she was doing would have been a lie.

* * *

Sasuke slammed the door shut behind Sakura and kicked the doorframe in spite.

She had a really nasty habit of riling him up, ruffling his feathers, but this? This took the cake.

_Haruno Sakura is planning a coup d'etat,_ he thought, unable to believe his own thoughts. _SAKURA is planning to overthrow the Konoha Council._

It would appear that, in his absence, Sakura had grown a diamond spine.

It would also appear that she had taken leave of her senses.

Sasuke knew firsthand how Konoha dealt with threats to their core infrastructure. Images of blood smeared on hardwood and a red moon overhead exploded through his mind, and he grit his teeth against his darkest memories. He'd seen the Elders' retribution meted out firsthand, and had lost his family as a result.

What Sakura was doing, as noble a cause as it undoubtedly was, would end the same way the Uchiha Clan had ended: with her complete and utter destruction.

Sasuke refused to examine his feelings for Sakura as anything more than a trusted teammate and friend. He knew that to even consider things a step further than that was bad news, so he relegated her to the aforementioned roles and nothing more. But he could say that she was important to him, and that he cared about her. If he lost her, he didn't know what he'd do.

He pinched the bridge of his nose and paced the hallway, a bundle of anger and nerves. He knew _exactly_ what he would do.

He'd kill the Elders.

They were already responsible for the fact that the Uchiha District was leveled, its legacy destroyed and an entire family of Konoha obliterated from the face of the Earth. If they authorized the death of Sakura, Sasuke knew he would kill them both and enjoy it.

He'd be arrested, exiled, assassinated, a million other things. And Sasuke could say that he wasn't happy to be serving the very Elders who'd ordered the destruction of his clan, but his heart was in Konoha. He didn't want to leave again, the way he knew he'd have to if Sakura was caught.

No.

He had to stop her, stop this from the start. He wasn't sure what she was planning (he hadn't let her talk very much before she'd stormed out) but nothing was worth her death.

She was part of the only family he had left, and he couldn't lose her the way he'd lost everyone else.

Even if she hated him for it.

* * *

Sakura returned to her apartment, heated and worried and a bundle of nerves.

Was Sasuke right?

She shook her head sharply, clearing the negativity from her thoughts. She would handle the schematics tomorrow. It was late now, and there was no sense in getting all worked up about everything.

She shut the door behind her and kicked off her sandals. Her stomach rumbled (planning an insurrection really had her working up an appetite), so she preheated the oven before popping into the bathroom for a quick shower.

She'd barely registered the presence of a foreign chakra before she was thrown up against the wall, an iron grip around her throat.

* * *

Her neck was slim, fragile beneath his hand, and to his eternal shame, this was not the first time they found themselves in this situation. But Sakura needed to learn a valuable lesson, and he had to teach her.

Automatically, she reached for a weapon to defend herself, but he was faster; he pinned her hand to the wall behind her head and watched, his stomach sick, as green eyes went wide, shining with betrayal. He never wanted to see that look in her eyes ever again.

"S-Sasuke?" she choked. "What are you doing? Let go!"

"If they want to kill you," he growled, loosening his grip marginally, "they'll get someone close to you to do it."

She stopped struggling. Her eyes were round and he knew she'd finally caught on. With a dark glare, he let her go, and she massaged her neck reflexively. He turned to face the window, hands shoved in his pockets.

"I don't know what it is you're planning," he said softly, unable to look at the red fingerprints around her throat. The idea of hurting her made him physically sick, and he couldn't reconcile that homicidal maniac he'd been the day he tried to kill Sakura with who he was now. "Or why. But you know that if the Council finds out about this…they'll kill you, Sakura. But they won't get their hands dirty. They'll have one of us do it."

"Sasuke-"

"They might try and use me," he went on aggressively, not giving her time to argue. "Or Kakashi. Sai. Ino. Maybe even Naruto."

He knew the chances of any of them turning on Sakura were practically nonexistent, but she needed to know who she was messing with. She was silent, which meant he had her attention.

"This isn't a game, Sakura." He turned to face her finally, and saw that she looked extremely uncomfortable. She shrunk away from him somewhat, her shoulders slumped, her arms wrapped almost protectively around herself. "Whatever you're planning, give it up. Now. It's not worth what they'll do to you."

Sasuke hated that he'd scared her. Since coming back to Konoha, he'd done all he could to earn Sakura's trust back, and felt that, until now, at least, he'd been doing a half-decent job. She counted on him to cover her back, and she did the same for him. In battle, they were a team, partners.

What were they now?

After this, she'd probably never trust him the way she used to. But hopefully, she'd be able to see that he was doing this for her own good. Better that she survive, and hate him, than die for a cause that could never be as important as she was.

She was quiet, seemingly gathering her thoughts, and when she met his gaze again, he was surprised to find that her eyes were like steel. There was absolutely no fear in her face at all, and when she spoke again, her voice was soft, calm.

Resolute.

"I'm doing this with or without your help, Sasuke," she said quietly. She tucked a lock of damp pink hair behind her ear. "It's not about me. It's not about you. It's about Konoha…all of us. It's about what's right. And I can't continue to serve a corrupt Council anymore than you can."

Sasuke's teeth clenched together. She was more stubborn than he'd expected.

"You're throwing your life away," he gritted out. "This is suicide."

Green eyes flashed fire like he'd never seen before. Sakura drew herself to her full height (a move clearly meant to be haughty, but he was so much taller than she was, it wasn't all that impressive) and put her hands on her hips. This move was far more distracting than it should have been, but she had been getting ready for bed, and wasn't dressed as conservatively as she usually was.

"There are some things worth risking your life for," she said hotly.

He wanted to shake her. There was _nothing_ worth risking her life for, he wanted to tell her. But she was as hardheaded as ever; if anything, she'd grown more and more stubborn, with each passing year.

"And if you thought you could come here," she added, shoving him hard backwards, "break into my house in the middle of the night," another shove, "and try and scare me into backing down…then you were sadly mistaken!"

"Sakura use your head," Sasuke snapped.

"You know _nothing_ about me!" Sakura hissed, and that stopped him dead. He regarded her pretty face with surprise; she looked like a true kunoichi then, nothing but determination so fierce it was almost lethal. Sakura was barely five feet tall, tiny and thin and with cotton candy pink hair, but she looked positively dangerous in her resolution.

And maybe she was right.

Maybe he knew absolutely nothing about her, when it came right down to it.

"This could be our chance, Sasuke," she pressed. "I'm not proposing we storm Hokage Tower and kill Koharu and Homura. Not at all. I'm proposing a _trial._"

He blinked. "A trial."

"I want to try the Elders for war crimes."

If Sasuke were the type, he would have laughed. As it was, he managed a dry scoff and folded his arms in disbelief. "You're certifiable."

"Sasuke use _your_ head," she snapped right back, and this new Sakura, this fearless, snarky Sakura, was a complete stranger to him. He wasn't sure if he liked her better than the simpering, pandering little girl she used to be, or less. "You should know better than anyone what they've done. Putting them on trial, getting the truth out there for once, not the lies we've all been raised to believe…this is what we need to do, don't you get it? To save Konoha from making the same mistakes all over again!"

He wasn't getting through to her. In fact, it seemed like everything he was saying to her was only reinforcing her iron-clad resolve to go through with this suicide mission of hers.

"Why are you doing this?" Sasuke demanded finally.

"It's the right thing to do, haven't you been listening? And-"

"No, answer me," he snapped. "Why are _you_ doing this?"

At that moment, a sudden sadness descended over Sakura's stormy eyes. The change in her temperament was immediate, and struck him harder than her little hands on his chest.

"My reasons are my own," she said coldly, but her voice didn't match her expression, which looked agonized. "I don't need to tell _you_ anything."

"Yet you want me to trust you," he scoffed.

Her gaze went icy, and she was fiercely, powerfully beautiful in her anger as she hissed, "I wouldn't expect you to know the meaning of the word 'trust'. But perhaps if you knew the _first thing about me,_ you'd know why I want this to happen so badly. Now get the _hell_ out of my apartment, you _bastard._"

Only when Sasuke had left, stormed out in a fury, and she was alone in her apartment did she allow herself to collapse onto her sofa, all the fight drained from her. Tears burned in her eyes as she counted all the ways she loathed Uchiha Sasuke.

And beyond that, loathed herself.

She reached blindly towards her coffee table and grabbed a framed photo with shaking hands. Staring back at her, their faces blurred by her tears, were her parents, Kizashi and Mebuki. The picture was a few years old, well-worn and crinkled at the corners, but Mom and Daddy smiled back at her from behind the glass nonetheless.

It was a curious, horrible thing, she realized, fingers tracing their faces in loving longing. To be so blind and deaf and ignorant to the goings-on of her own village all this time, to stand idly by drowning in blissful unawareness while evil was being carried out in the name of good. And only to realize such horrors when they actually touched her.

There was so much happening in Konoha, underneath the underneath, and the reality of what her home really was when all the layers were stripped away made her sick. She hadn't known the truth behind Sasuke, behind the Uchiha Massacre, and she'd had the gall to consider herself one of his closest friends years ago. She hadn't questioned a single order handed down to her by her superiors.

She had watched both her parents die on her operating table, helpless to save them, and only when the corruption of the Council affected her directly had she even bothered to notice it.

Was she doing the right thing here? Really and truly, when it came down to it?

Or did it all boil down to revenge, dressed up to look like justice, but in the end, no different from that elusive, false prophet vengeance that never solved anything?

She set the picture frame back down on the table and ran her fingers through her hair. It was all too much for her; ruminating on things like this, second-guessing herself and doubting in her own resolution wasn't going to help anyone. Sakura knew this was what needed to happen, what was right for the village and for Konoha's relationships with the other nations.

She needed to sleep, she realized. And talk to Naruto. Naruto was her kindest, dearest friend; he would be able to tell her if what she was doing was righteous justice, or selfish vengeance.

_Since apparently,_ she thought, laying down on her sofa with heavy eyelids and a heavy heart, _I'm not able to tell the difference anymore._

Sakura was asleep in seconds.

* * *

Sasuke wasn't going to wait for Sakura to tell Naruto.

He was going to do it himself.

_If there's one person on this planet she'll listen to,_ he thought heatedly, _it's the dobe._

He'd vaguely hoped that Tsunade might talk some sense into Sakura's thick skull. The Hokage was a strict, often ruthless woman who had a zero tolerance policy for idiocy. Surely Sakura's half-cocked scheme met the criteria for insanity, but apparently, judging by his stupid teammate's lack of bruises, Tsunade hadn't even disagreed with her.

He'd tried doing it on his own, getting through to Sakura, but if anything, he'd only made things worse. Sakura still didn't trust him, was uneasy around him, and he should have considered that before trying to bully her into seeing reason. Now, her guard was up against him even fiercer than before, and he might even have bolstered her resolve.

Which left it up to Naruto. Naruto, whose opinion was gold to Sakura. He was the last person she'd ever want to hurt, which meant he was the only person alive who could shake some sense into her.

He stormed through the streets of Konoha, blind to its evening beauty. It was hot, unseasonably so, and the night air offered little respite from the heat. The streetlamps were lit, but things were quiet, peaceful. No one paid attention to him as he stalked towards Naruto's apartment building.

_What did she mean by that?_ He wondered, thinking of Sakura's sudden, lethal anguish. There had been such _sadness_ in her eyes then…

Well, whatever she was hiding from him, Naruto would surely tell him. He reached his building and stomped inside before pounding on the door.

"Open up, dobe!" he called impatiently.

"What the fucking hell," he heard Naruto grumble before the door was thrown open. His best friend looked even dumber than usual in his sleeping cap, drool dribbling from his chin and his blue eyes tinged red with exhaustion. However, true to form, Naruto took one look at his visitor and perked up instantly. "Teme! What's up, we got a mission or somethin? Where to? I hope it's not Suna, it's already hot as hell here…"

"We don't have a mission, you idiot," Sasuke snapped, rapidly running out of patience. He'd already had to deal with one psychotic, criminally stupid teammate tonight; it was very late, and he didn't think he had the energy to deal with another. "It's about Sakura."

"Sakura-chan?" Naruto asked curiously, frowning. "What's wrong with Sakura-chan?"

Sasuke thought back to the troubled look in her eyes, her thinly-veiled anxiety around him, her refusal to speak what was really on her mind. None of it added up, none of it made any sense, and he sighed sharply before he finally spoke.

"I think she's in trouble."

* * *

**note..** Hi, everyone! I wanted to expand a little on Sakura's character in this chapter by revealing more of her reasoning for what she's planning. I'll expound more on what happened to her parents in the coming chapters, so you can see her real motivation for doing what she's doing. Giving her some common ground with Sasuke lets them distinguish the difference between vengeance and justice, or if there even is one. I'm excited to keep going with this story, and I hope you stick with me and see what I'm planning!

Let me know what you think, dollfaces. Love youuu :)

xoxo Daisy


	4. Teammates

It was almost comical, the way Naruto's demeanor changed the instant Sasuke told him that something was wrong with Sakura.

Immediately, the grogginess of sleep melted into wide-eyed concern. He ripped off his ridiculous sleeping cap and demanded, nothing but urgency, "What do you mean, she's in trouble? What happened?"

Sasuke's lip curled, and he glanced around him covertly. Standing outside Naruto's apartment, anyone could be listening, and should Sakura's machinations be heard by the wrong person, it could land her in prison. Or worse. "Not here. Let me in."

Naruto stepped aside to admit him, and once both boys were safely inside, the door behind them locked, Sasuke went to check the windows. Stepping around piles and piles of filthy, smelly clothes that Naruto clearly never washed, he shut the window that was open to beckon in a balmy summer night breeze. Once he closed it, he wished he hadn't; without the pleasant draft, the stench of sour milk and sweat pervading the small apartment became almost overpowering.

"Come on, teme!" Naruto demanded. "What's going on? You're acting crazy!"

"Keep your voice down, you dobe," Sasuke snapped. He folded his arms and said, "What do you know about what Sakura's planning?"

"Planning?" Naruto frowned in confusion. "What do you mean, planning?"

Sasuke studied his best friend's face for a trace of a lie, but found none. Naruto was annoyingly sincere, and couldn't lie to save his life.

But this raised another question: why the hell had Sakura gone to _Sasuke_ first, of all people? It was common knowledge that there was no one in the world she trusted more than Uzumaki Naruto. It was also common knowledge that there was no one in the world she trusted _less_ than Uchiha Sasuke. What were her motives, truly? What wasn't she telling him?

"She told me she wants to overthrow the Konoha Council," Sasuke said in a rush. Paranoid that someone might be listening, still, he activated his Sharingan and looked out the window he'd just closed. No one was there; he couldn't detect any chakra signatures besides those of Naruto's neighbors, most of whom were civilian and all of whom were sleeping peacefully in their beds.

Naruto burst out laughing.

"Who knew you had a sense of humor, teme?" he guffawed, slapping his knee. "All this time we thought you were too uptight to joke around, but this is pretty good! I mean, a little amateurish for your first official prank, but you came to the right place, if you want to improve!"

"This isn't a joke, you idiot!" Sasuke snapped, his teeth clenched together in anger. "Sakura came to my house just now, telling me she wants to overthrow the Council. Replace it completely. _Put the elders on trial._ You had no idea she was thinking this?"

"You're…not kidding? She really said that?"

"Yes," Sasuke said, seething. Naruto was one of the dumbest people he'd ever met in his life, and his slowness in this matter was beyond frustrating. "She said that. I want to know why."

Naruto frowned to himself, before his blue eyes took on an expression of sadness that Sasuke wasn't expecting. _I was right,_ he thought, studying his best friend's face closely. _He knows something I don't. Some reason Sakura's gone crazy._

"Maybe…you should hear it from her," the dobe responded, and it was the absolute last thing Sasuke was expecting to hear. It enraged him, that Naruto might have an inkling as to why Sakura was doing what she was doing, and holding out on him.

"You mean you know?" Sasuke demanded. "Tell me, you idiot! She's gonna get herself killed!"

Naruto crossed the room and sat down on the edge of his bed, turning his sleeping cap over and over in his hands, lost in thought.

"She told me she wants a new Konoha," Sasuke said, trying to control his temper. "She wants to try Homura and Koharu for the massa…for what happened with my family." He was still unwilling to go into much detail on the fall of the Uchiha Clan, even if he'd put it behind him. "I know she was a medic-nin during the war. She must've seen some shit. But none of that would explain fully why she's lost her mind!"

"She's not lying about those things," Naruto said wistfully. "When she found out what happened to your family…it broke her heart. Sasuke she didn't know right away. Me and Kakashi-sensei found out before. We didn't tell her."

This was new to Sasuke. Against his will, he thought of the way Sakura had challenged him back in the Land of Iron, the poisoned kunai she'd carried that wouldn't have worked on him anyway. The kunai she hadn't been able to use on him. She really hadn't known that day? The motivation for Sasuke's madness?

It was irrelevant right now, though. There would be time to ruminate on Sakura's motives for her actions that horrible day later, after he'd ensured that she wouldn't get herself assassinated in some ill-conceived quest for nobility.

"I don't care about that," he lied smoothly. "Maybe she's not lying about that. But she's not telling the whole truth."

He wouldn't beg Naruto for answers. He wasn't really, entirely sure why he was going this far for Sakura in the first place; they were teammates again, but it wasn't like she trusted him the way she used to. There was a wall between them now and they avoided each other wherever possible.

But that didn't stop him from wanting to know what was pushing Sakura so hard.

Didn't stop him from wanting to stop her, at whatever cost.

"Look," Naruto said quietly, and hearing his best friend speak at a soft volume was more shocking than anything else that had happened tonight, including the knowledge that, if she had her way, Sakura was about to become a traitor to the village she loved. "I…Sakura-chan is…"

"Spit it out, dobe," Sasuke snapped.

"I don't think you should hear it from me, what happened to her," Naruto finished. There was an air of finality in his words, and he pointedly looked away from his best friend. "She's not going to try an assassinate the Elders. If what she wants is a trial? Well…after what happened, that's pretty justified, far as I'm concerned."

Sasuke experienced a rage so powerful, he couldn't see straight. His Sharingan reactivated on its own, as it often did when he was angry or distressed. This was bullshit. All that talk of "what it means to be a team," thrown out the window when it mattered the most. All this time, he'd been demonized as the member of Team 7 who'd turned his back on the ones who cared about him most, and here his hypocritical teammates were doing the exact same thing to him.

"It's not that I don't think you should hear it," Naruto said, his voice stronger, emphatic, and he met Sasuke's angry gaze with something like serenity in his own. "Just that…it's her story to tell. Not mine."

"Maybe you don't understand what would happen to her," Sasuke snapped, advancing on his best friend with all the intention in the world of punching him in the face. "But the Uchiha Clan serves as a pretty good reminder as to what the Konoha Council will do to people who threaten them."

Naruto flinched. Good. At least he was getting through to one of his teammates tonight.

"Just because she's not approaching this with violence, doesn't mean they won't. You think shit's changed around here, just because Madara's dead? Just because the war's over? How can anything change when we're still taking orders from the same bastards who-"

"Maybe you understand what Sakura-chan's thinking, then," Naruto cut him off swiftly, and Sasuke stopped cold. "Sounds like you two might agree on this, actually."

"Of course I agree with her," Sasuke growled. "I _hate_ the Council. They had Itachi kill our whole _family._ But overthrowing them? She's gonna get killed!"

Naruto's temper flared the more Sasuke emphasized Sakura's inevitable fate in all of this, and finally he was on his feet, hands clenched into fists and more than ready to meet Sasuke blow for blow if necessary.

"Look, asshole," he snarled, "maybe you're not the only one who lost their family because of the council, okay?"

Sasuke's attention was caught; immediately, the desire to pound Naruto dissipated as he realized his idiot best friend had slipped up.

"What do you mean by that?" he asked, eyes narrowed. Something hollow rested in his stomach, a sick, dull dread he hadn't felt in awhile. He watched Naruto's face pale. "Sakura's parents aren't dead."

Promptly, without any kind of warning, Naruto drew his fist back and punched Sasuke as hard as he could in the jaw. Unprepared for the onslaught, Sasuke was thrown backwards against the wall, hitting hard enough to crack the plaster. Furious, he whirled around to face Naruto, only to hear him say something that made his blood run cold.

"Shows what you know about your own teammate, teme! No wonder she didn't waste her time telling you!"

Sasuke was just about to retort with something vicious when there came a knock at the door. He cast his best friend a warning glance, his hand flying into his pocket for a throwing star just in case they'd need it; Naruto shook his head and answered the door to Sai.

"Sai, what're you doing here?" he asked.

"Good evening, Naruto," Sai replied, working on his manners with the help of Sakura, and one Yamanaka Ino, whom he was seeing a lot of lately, for "extra lessons." He smiled courteously, before turning to Sasuke, who was rubbing his swollen jaw in the corner. "And to you as well, Sasuke. Please forgive my interruption of what was no doubt a stirring sexual romp between the both of you. But I was sent from Tsunade-sama to inform you all that we have a mission."

"You gotta be kidding me," Sasuke swore under his breath, pointedly ignoring Sai's implication; murdering one of his new teammates would not reflect kindly upon him in this uphill quest for redemption in the eyes of the village.

"Right now?" Naruto asked. "What kind of mission? It's like three in the morning! Who's all going?"

Missions were few and far between lately. Most of the villages were rebuilding after the war, and with peacefulness being the new standard to maintain, the majority of missions being distributed were ambassador's trips, reconstruction, that sort of thing.

Not the type of mission issued at 3 in the morning, to a team like Team 7.

"We're to head immediately to Amegakure," Sai replied patiently. "The three of us, and the hag as well." Sasuke rolled his eyes at Sai's stupid nickname for Sakura – it didn't apply at all – before seeing that this was actually a blessing in disguise.

Better to get Sakura out of the village before anyone else could hear about her stupid plan. He'd have more luck convincing her to knock it off if they were away from anyone who could potentially agree with her.

"For what?" Sasuke pressed.

"There seems to have been an accident at one of the landmines," Sai explained. "Many miners were killed and many more are injured; their medics are ill-equipped to deal with the volume of wounded and the severity of their injuries. We're to escort the hag safely, so she can deal with the worst of them."

"Wouldn't they need more medics than just Sakura?" Sasuke asked, frowning.

"Yeah, none of us are medics like she is, we couldn't really help much," Naruto added.

"Hokage-sama is suspicious that the mining collapse was no accident," Sai replied. "We have not yet met, nor do we understand the motives of, the new Kage of Amegakure. This is many missions rolled into one: Sakura is to heal the wounded, we are all to make sure she is protected, and serve as both ambassadors to this unsteady nation…and spies, if necessary."

Something twisted in Sasuke's stomach. Already, _already,_ the tenuous bonds each village had established with one another following the war were being tested. Granted, Amegakure had a shaky government at best right now; it was unknown who was actually leading the village, after Konan's death. It was, perhaps, wise to exercise caution, even suspicion, when you didn't have all the pieces to a puzzle.

Still, though, it was an unsavory reminder that even if peace was the objective, it was not necessarily probable.

"Got it," Naruto said, his previous bad mood with Sasuke vanishing with the prospect of a new adventure. Apparently, Sasuke's uneasiness with the situation was not shared by his naïve best friend. "Well…let's get our shit and wake up Sakura-chan!"

* * *

Sasuke and Naruto took a few moments to collect their things, requiring an extra trip to his house for clothes, food, and weapons, while Sai summoned Sakura. Alone in his house, he checked that his weapons pouch was well-stocked with kunai, throwing stars, paper bombs; even if Sasuke rarely bothered with any of those, preferring the deadly reliability of his sword, it was never a good idea to ignore anything that could save his life when it came down to it, or, more importantly, the lives of his teammates.

It was impossible to squash the rage that was growing within him. Naruto knew something about Sakura, something important: it would seem that, contrary to his belief that Sakura lived an idyllic life with loving, living parents, it was not the case. If Naruto's slip-up revealed anything, it was that Sakura's parents were dead.

And that somehow, the Council was involved.

That meant they could relate to one another on some level, he and Sakura, in a way they never could have before.

He didn't want that to happen. While he could say he wanted a connection with Sakura, he never wanted her to know the horror and hate that accompanied working for the same people who took away everything you loved.

He never wanted her to go through life alone, without the stability and love a family could provide. She was older, granted, than he'd been when he lost his family, but she was still seventeen. A girl, by anyone's standards, and too young, too delicate to be alone in the world.

Sasuke was angry at her, for as much as he sympathized with her situation (even if he had no idea what that included.) He was equally a member of Team 7, same as Naruto, wasn't he? Didn't he deserve to know something as important as a teammate's trauma?

It occurred to him, with a sick, sour feeling in his stomach, that Sai might be aware of what had happened.

Sasuke reluctantly accepted his look-alike into the team, simply because he'd done what Sasuke couldn't do for Sakura and Naruto all the years he was away: protected them. Even if he was a complete asshole with no concept of human nature, Sasuke begrudgingly respected the fact that Sai was important to Naruto and Sakura. Team 7 had grown.

But the idea that his essential replacement was privy to knowledge that Sasuke himself was denied, made him sick with bitter resentment.

_How can she say we're a team,_ he thought furiously, strapping his sword tightly to his waist, _if she keeps a secret like this from me?_

Well, no matter. He'd get to the bottom of this one way or another.

* * *

They met up at the village gates a half-hour after Sai had arrived at Naruto's. Naruto looked exuberantly happy to be taking a mission with his team; Sai had his creepy, soulless smile on his face as he greeted the others; and Sakura looked ruffled, irritated, and refused to so much as look at him.

His eyes narrowed.

"Hokage-sama has assigned Sakura to be team leader," Sai reported. Sasuke found it interesting that he only ever insulted Sakura's appearance when she wasn't around. Apparently, he had the sense to know that calling a girl ugly to her face guaranteed one a quick trip to the hospital.

Though he never really understood why Sai called Sakura 'ugly' or 'hag' in the first place. There were many areas in which Sakura was lacking, (sanity, temperament, reasonability) but certainly not in her appearance.

Quickly, he derailed that train of thought and turned his attention to the forest beyond the gates, as Sakura took point in their group.

"We'll make better time if we take the new roads," she said, adjusting her pack and pulling her longer pink hair up into a ponytail, so it wouldn't get in her eyes as they ran. "Naruto, left flank. Sai, right. Sasuke, rear."

He scoffed under his breath, seeing through her game completely. With Sai and Naruto between them, there was no way he could get her on her own to talk to her. Beyond that, there was something utterly _bizarre_ about taking orders from _Haruno Sakura._ Granted, she was an excellent team leader, levelheaded where she needed to be and constantly thinking about the safety of her teammates.

But remembering the shy, frightened little girl who'd needed him to step in front of her at every sudden movement all those years ago, it was impossible to reconcile her with the capable, confident young woman she'd grown into.

He respected her as both a kunoichi and a captain. But there was something foreign about seeing the white circle displayed on the back of her clothes as she ran ahead of him.

They took off at an impressive pace. Sakura was moving rather quickly, given her previous fatigue. Sasuke couldn't help but note how her speed had improved so drastically in the years they'd been apart. He still, to his consternation, was not fully aware of her capabilities now that she was seventeen, and a true kunoichi to her core.

It occurred to him that there was still so much of Haruno Sakura that remained a mystery.

* * *

They made the journey straight through, overnight, with stopping. Sakura said it was because she wanted to reach the village as soon as possible, to begin tending to the wounded, but Sasuke strongly suspected that a far more personal reason was her blatant refusal to speak to him for any length of time.

They met no trouble along the way, fortunately. Naruto had plenty to say about _that._ "Who the hell would try and attack Team _7?_"

The arrogance in the question, though, had some basis in reality. Team 7 had garnered itself quite a reputation as a very powerful contingent of shinobi, each one lethal in his or her own way. Sasuke couldn't think of many who would tangle with a team with a reputation like theirs.

Still, there was a palpable tension in the air between the four of them. Sasuke was sure it was because of his current argument with Sakura; she was still angry with him, and wouldn't let it go even knowing he was tasked with the duty of keeping her safe on their trip. Their bitterness towards one another was clearly felt throughout the group; Naruto's many attempts to start an amiable conversation were met with cold, curt replies and eventually he gave up entirely. Silent and tense, they arrived in Ame, knowing they'd reached their destination when it began to rain.

Sasuke _hated_ rain.

Sakura led them quickly to the main gates, where two shinobi were standing guard in a birds' nest similar to the one they had back in Konoha.

She raised her hand in greeting, and both shinobi appeared in front of them on the ground.

"Name and purpose," one demanded.

"I'm Haruno Sakura, from Konoha," she replied, handing him a scroll that Sasuke guessed had been given to her by Tsunade. "The Hokage sent me here to help with your wounded. This is my team."

Any suspicion the guards may have had was wiped out when they read the scroll.

"I recognize you!" the other one exclaimed, and Sasuke's eyes narrowed as he tensed for confrontation, but to his shock, the guard wasn't pointing at him. Or even Naruto.

He pointed at Sakura.

"You're the famous healer from Konoha!" he said excitedly. "The one trained by Tsunade-sama!"

Sakura smiled professionally, all business.

"This is great, man!" the excitable guard said to the other one, clapping him on the back. "Sakura-sama saved my brother's life during the war!"

_Sakura-SAMA?_ Sasuke thought, astonished.

The more composed shinobi guard nodded solemnly and returned the scroll to Sakura.

"Welcome to Ame, Haruno-san," he said. "We greatly appreciate your assistance. Please make quickly for the hospital; we've relocated the survivors there for the time being, but our medic-nin are overwhelmed with the volume of patients moving in. Civilian doctors have been dispatched there as well, but they don't have the necessary experience required to treat shinobi wounds. Have one of your teammates announce themselves to our Kage as well. We've been waiting for you."

"Right," Sakura replied, bowing. "Thank you very much."

With that, Team 7 hurried inside the gates.

Sakura led them quickly through the streets of the small, but industrialized city. Apparently she knew her way around, and Sasuke had to guess she'd been to Ame before.

"I'm gonna be locked down at the hospital for awhile," Sakura said, all determination. "I have to get as many patients stabilized as possible. Naruto, Sasuke, head to the government building downtown and report to the Kage that we're here."

"Aw, why can't I stay with you, Sakura-chan?" Naruto whined.

She rolled her eyes. "Because Sai can keep his mouth shut while I'm operating. Now go."

"If I may so, Sakura," Sai spoke up quickly, "perhaps Sasuke should stay with you, instead of me. His history as a traitor may work against him in meeting with the new Kage; I can go with Naruto to introduce ourselves, and explain Sasuke's unique situation."

Sasuke's eyes flickered to Sakura, who was biting her lip. It was clear that Sai had a point, and she was compromising the mission with her refusal to cooperate. She finally relented.

"Fine," she said flatly. "Head there immediately, and when you're done, come straight to the hospital. Even if you guys can't heal, you can at least lift."

Content with their orders, Naruto and Sai vanished to deal with the new Kage, while Sasuke glanced at Sakura. She promptly looked away from him.

"Not a word," she said warningly, and without further ado, she took off at a run for the hospital doors.

These foreign shinobi knew about Haruno Sakura, recognized her before recognizing Naruto, or himself. It was shocking to note that far from remaining the weak, fragile little girl he'd always known her to be, Sakura had grown up, worked hard, and earned her own merit.

It raised an unsavory thought within him, as his Sharingan eyes locked onto her long pink ponytail whipping behind her as she flew into the hospital.

_Did I ever really know you to begin with?_

* * *

__**note..** Hi! Thanks for waiting on this one. I'm having a good time writing it, I hope you're having a good time reading it.

For those of you who are unaware, my Phillies are riding a seven-game winning streak and are back in contention for the playoffs. Just in case there is someone out there who needs to know that. There you go. I love you Phillies. More than anything.

Anyway, I digress. I always do. Let me know what you think! Have a good weekend :)

xo Daisy


	5. Celebrity

Sakura thanked Tsunade in her head a million times over as she threw herself into her work. During her medic-nin training, Tsunade had drilled into her the importance of remaining entirely focused on the task at hand; if a medic allowed her mind to wander during surgeries, procedures, or even simple examinations, the consequences could be dire. Knelt over a patient with severe internal bleeding, the glowing green chakra of her Mystical Palm Technique slowly stitching him back together, Sakura felt all the more indebted to her former mentor for the blessed ability to ignore the smothering distraction standing in the room watching her.

Sasuke was logically the right man to bring with her into the operating theaters. He was smart and unobtrusive, knew to stay out of the medics' way while they were working. Any other time, were Sakura's attention not devoted exclusively to saving as many wounded men as she possibly could, his presence would be all-encompassing.

At the moment, he was just there. Unable to confront her on what they'd discussed back in Konoha with so much going on. With her mind wrapped up entirely in what she was doing, it was easy to tune out the fact that he was standing six feet away from her, dark eyes sweeping over her every move.

The injuries she faced were horrific. The only good thing that could be said about them was that they were civilian injuries, which by nature were easier for medic-nin to treat than injuries received during shinobi battles. Poison extraction was exhausting; healing the aftereffects of a debilitating genjutsu often left the medic more fatigued than the patient. These wounds were grotesque, but they were also treatable.

The heart monitor her current patient was hooked up to suddenly flatlined.

"Shit!" she snapped. "We're losing him!"

She redirected her chakra to his heart, and sent a shock coursing through his veins to give it a jumpstart. The hair tie pinning her hair back in a loose ponytail was slipping, her bangs falling forward in her eyes, but she forced herself to concentrate on what she was doing as the other medics rushed to help her.

The heart monitor spiked, flatlined again. "Come on," Sakura urged the man on the table, repeating what she'd done. Sweat beaded on her forehead, the strain of such long, uninterrupted stints of healing was starting to take its toll on her, but Sakura refused to give up. "Come on!"

Another spike on the machine, followed by a choked gasp and the man's heart began to beat regularly again. Sakura allowed herself not one second to celebrate her victory as she dispersed more healing chakra to the hole in his stomach.

"He's back!" she announced. "All right, I've incited cell regeneration and accelerated the healing process, take him to Recovery Room 12 and see that he's kept induced. Wrap him up the rest of the way and change his bandages every hour on the hour."

"Yes, ma'am!" Two medics affirmed her command and wheeled the man out of the operating room. She had no chance to rest, though, before another patient was brought to her table, this one a young woman carried in with one of her arms cleanly severed during the collapse. Sakura bit her lip at the frightening amount of work this patient, and the hundreds still waiting for treatment, presented before she threw herself full force into her task.

Sasuke's presence behind her, the heaviness of his gaze on her back, was never easier to ignore.

* * *

Watching Sakura, keeping his guard up in case of attack, Sasuke was torn between a begrudging admiration for her talent, and a boiling frustration for her self-sacrifice.

He could read her chakra levels. They were dangerously low, her reserves all but depleted. He didn't need to be a tracker-nin to see that she was running on empty, and if she didn't stop soon, he'd be carrying her back to Konoha in pieces.

Still, though, she worked as hard as she could. Every patient brought to her table was saved, treated, and assigned to a different civilian doctor for follow-up. She called out commands to the other, less-experienced medics in the room, offered advice to the civilian doctors brought in as back-up, carried herself with the kind of self-assurance you only really ever saw in people who've earned the right to be called the best.

Sasuke was impressed against his will. Remembering the way she'd moved on the battlefield all those weeks ago, like a hellcat with healing chakra glowing in one hand and a dosed kunai in the other, simultaneously healing the wounded shinobi and attacking the army of Zetsu clones, he could never say she wasn't excellent at her job.

Which made her willingness to throw away _everything_ she'd ever worked for all the more frustrating to him.

To compound his irritation with her, she was running herself into the ground healing the patients that the Ame shinobi kept carrying inside. The Ame medics were slow and inefficient; Sakura healed and dismissed five patients by the time the others had finished with one. They were poorly-trained and completely unprepared for a calamity this severe.

_Tsunade should have sent more medics besides her,_ Sasuke thought, frowning with suspicion. _If the reports were clear on how bad this was, why didn't she dispatch an ANBU medic squad? Sakura's good, but she can't handle all these people on her own._

He watched as her ponytail whipped back and forth as she raced healing chakra through a woman's system. She did not look the slightest bit perturbed at having to reattach a severed arm to its owner, something that shouldn't have surprised Sasuke the way it did. As a medic, of course she must have dealt with things far gorier and more repulsive than severed limbs.

But it was impossible for him to reconcile this confident, experienced kunoichi in front of him, who'd strode into a foreign city and conquered everyone inside with her unmatched talent, with the frightening, feeble little girl he'd looked out for back when they were genin. Instead of shying away from the blood and guts and gore, Sakura merely provoked cell regeneration and with a practiced hand, stitched the arm back on like it was nothing. Moments later, she had a nurse wheel the dazed but healing girl to a recovery room and waved in her next patient: a man with both arms dislocated and a few broken bones, judging from Sasuke's somewhat naïve diagnosis.

He kept his eyes trained on her back, his Sharingan activating as he read her chakra levels again. She needed to rest and replenish her energy before she kept going, but it didn't look like there would be enough time for her to do so. They needed more help.

Sakura seemed to think so, too; she looked around the room and found that all the other doctors, medics, and nurses were busy attending to their own patients. Unexpectedly, she looked round at Sasuke, her green eyes tired but urgent.

"Come here," she said, and though she was his team captain, it sounded much more like a request than an order. Reading the exhaustion and near-desperation on her pale face, he obeyed quickly, unsure what she expected from him. "I need to…I won't waste time on the technical terms. I need you to hold him still."

Sasuke nodded curtly. He was no medic, but if he could do something that would speed this arduous process along, then he'd do it. He held the man upright while Sakura positioned herself on the side of the table.

"This will hurt for a bit, sir," Sakura warned the patient, who was moaning, his head lolling back against Sasuke's shoulder. He smelled like sweat and blood, and vaguely Sasuke wondered how Sakura could tolerate this kind of revolting environment. Somehow, the hospital was so much more gruesome to him than the battlefield.

Without any further ado, Sakura shoved his right arm back into its socket. The man let out a howl of pain, smashing his head back into Sasuke's chest hard enough to hurt. He grit his teeth and held him still while Sakura moved swiftly to do the same with his left arm.

"Ready? One, two, _three!_"

The man moaned; Sasuke knew from experience having your arm reset was agonizing, and he had a very, very high threshold for pain. Imagining the process for a civilian, with absolutely no shinobi training and little endurance, he could definitely understand the man's reaction. Sakura smiled tiredly but reassuringly at the patient as she summoned a nurse to take him to recover elsewhere.

"Bless you, darlin," the man sighed, the agony in his arms slowly abating with each passing minute. "I'd've lost my arms if you weren't here."

"Happy to help," Sakura said, and Sasuke noted that she was almost completely out of chakra. Nonetheless, she called another patient over.

"You need to rest," Sasuke said sharply.

She glared at him as she quickly washed her hands in one of the sanitizing sinks, scrubbing blood out from her nails before she got to work on the next patient.

"You're in no position to question me," she snapped. "I'm Captain, and that means…"

"It means you have a responsibility to keep yourself _alive,_" Sasuke shot back, in absolutely no mood to listen to her squabbling. "How useful can you be to these people if you drop dead of chakra depletion?"

"He's right, Haruno-sama!" one of the civilian doctors spoke, approaching them with a sweaty brow but relief in his eyes. "We've stabilized the worst of the injuries from the patients that survived the blast, the rest are minor enough that we are able to treat them without your help. You have saved so many of our people, Haruno-sama. Please, take the rest of the night to rest!"

Sasuke watched Sakura debate with herself. He knew that part of her was determined to stay in the operating theater until she passed out, but that that part was at war with her sensible side, which demanded that she rest immediately if she really, truly wanted to help these patients. She would be back to her regular strength after she had some food in her system and a good night's sleep to replenish her energy; she could help hundreds of people then.

"Come on, Sakura," he said firmly.

She sighed, her shoulders sagging, and she looked so tiny, so exhausted he almost felt bad he hadn't offered to help her sooner.

"All right," she said. "But if something goes wrong, I want to be informed immediately."

"Yes, ma'am!" the doctor replied with a warm, thankful smile. "We can't begin to tell you how grateful we are for your assistance. And to you as well," he added, "Uchiha-san."

Sasuke was briefly taken aback. He hadn't done anything to help besides make sure a writhing patient hadn't punched Sakura in the face while she reset his arms. But he replied with a muted, "Hn," and grabbed Sakura's arm. "Let's go."

He was unsurprised when she twisted quickly out of his grasp, not enough for it to be overly noticeable to the doctor who was seeing them off, considering she kept her tired smile in place, but Sasuke understood why she struggled with being touched by him. It wasn't like it had ever ended well for her, every time his fingers brushed her skin…

He grit his teeth against this dim realization and vaguely heard the doctor direct them to an inn they could rest at, with the promise that someone would come wake Sakura if they encountered an injury too severe for them to handle. With that, they left the operating room, headed downstairs and out of the hospital into the cool night air.

The rain had let up somewhat. Sasuke could tell by the marginal lightening of the ugly gray stormclouds overhead that it was near dawn, even if he couldn't make out the sun. Sakura had worked all through the night, and a quick scan of her chakra told him that she had maybe minutes before she passed out. _Stupid girl,_ he thought, frustrated. _She didn't need to go that hard._

She was swaying a little as she walked, but the distance she kept from him screamed that she didn't want any help. Sasuke got the feeling that if Naruto or Sai had been there (and where the hell were they?), she might have been comfortable leaning on one of their shoulders. He told himself it didn't hurt that he wasn't trusted as implicitly as his teammates, because he certainly deserved it, after everything he'd done to Sakura.

It was impossible, however, to tamp down the rebellious thoughts in the back of his mind, that reminded him of everything he'd done _for_ Sakura. He was trying, wasn't he? He was fucking trying. Since coming back to Konoha, he'd done everything he could to win back her trust.

In fact, apart from one crazed confrontation during a moment of fleeting madness, where he'd condemned her to death and _would have killed her,_ Sasuke could safely say he'd never gone out of his way to hurt Sakura. When Team 7 had briefly reunited during his apprenticeship with Orochimaru, he'd attacked Naruto, Sai, and the captain with the Wood Release technique, but he'd only raised his sword against Sakura to defend himself. As genin, he'd protected her. Now, with all of them jonin, he still kept an eye on her.

Her ice was expected, but Sasuke, knowing he was a selfish creature impatient for redemption, couldn't help but wonder if it was entirely deserved.

* * *

They found their way to the inn the doctor had suggested. Sakura's bloodsoaked appearance did not endear her to the innkeeper, an aging woman who regarded her with no small amount of disgust. However, an Ame messenger arrived on their heels and explained to the innkeeper who the two strange Konoha nin were, and Sasuke was surprised to watch her attitude change completely.

"You're Haruno Sakura?" she exclaimed, her grizzled features alive with an almost fevered awe.

"Yes," Sakura replied tiredly. "Do you guys have a room available? We have money, we just need a place to-"

"You saved my boy," the old woman interrupted. Tears burned in her eyes, leaking into her wrinkles, and Sasuke watched her warily. "During the war. You saved my only son."

"I did?" Sakura was too exhausted to stand properly, let alone respond with any kind of lucidity. Sasuke growled under his breath; couldn't the old woman see how urgent it was that Sakura find a place to sleep?

"Yes, dear girl. Yes you did. He's all I got now, besides this rundown old inn, and he told me when he got back how a medic from Konoha saved his life. He'd've died on that battlefield sure as shoot, if you hadn't helped him."

"Glad I could help," Sakura replied, swaying a little precariously. "Do you have a room?"

"'Course we do, for Haruno Sakura," the innkeeper said, her voice gruff with emotion. She tottered out from behind the counter, a squat woman, a ring of brass keys in hand as she dismissed the Ame messenger with a wave of her hand. "And you, boy," she added, directing her gaze onto Sasuke, who shifted uncomfortably. He knew he was easily recognizable; Uchihas always were. Not to mention, he'd been the enemy of this old woman's son during the war. He was more than used to people condemning him for his actions, and…

"You helped end it. You made sure all those innocent boys and girls came home to their families. You don't know how much we appreciate it, Uchiha Sasuke."

He blinked. Praise? Gratitude?

Did he even remember what those _were_ anymore?

"Hn," he muttered.

"You look tired," the innkeeper remarked, apparently taking note of Sakura's fatigue for the first time. "I'll show you to your room."

"Thank you," Sakura sighed in relief. "How much do we owe you?"

"Not a dime," the old woman replied curtly. "Seems a small, unworthy way of repaying you for what you did for my boy, but it's all I can give you right now. Besides my gratitude. To both of you."

They were led to a small but nice room at the end of the hallway. The innkeeper let them inside and as she closed the door behind them, she remarked offhand, "You make for a lovely couple, you two. On behalf of Ame, I wish you nothing but happiness."

Sasuke froze, eyes wide, but the woman shut the door and shuffled off down the hallway. When he chanced a glance at Sakura, he saw that she'd collapsed onto the mattress of the only bed in the room, and was fast asleep. Whether she'd heard the comment and was just unbothered by it, or whether she hadn't heard it at all, he couldn't tell.

Quickly, he was at her side, two fingers pressed against the pulse point in her neck. Her heartrate was slow, but strong. Her breathing was deep and even. She'd be fine after a good night's sleep.

Blood, none of it her own, smeared across the bedsheets where she lay curled up like a cat, a serene expression on her face. He noted wryly that her hands, which she'd scrubbed before he'd dragged her out of the room to prepare for a new patient, were perfectly clean and bloodless, much like Sakura herself. Sasuke's eyes swept involuntarily across her body, tiny and tight and feminine, the way a kunoichi's body should be. A strange heat stole through his abdomen, and he forced himself to look away.

A lovely couple. He could have scoffed. As if anyone would believe that someone like Sakura would go for someone like him.

He shook away his thoughts, reminding himself that he was on a mission. Naruto and Sai should have been back by now from their meeting with the Kage of Ame. It had been hours. Maybe they were finished and found another place to stay that night? Either way, they needed to reconvene as soon as possible.

He couldn't leave Sakura alone and unattended to find their teammates; his primary function on this mission was to be her bodyguard, and in her state, she would never even hear an assassin step inside before she was murdered. Thinking quickly, he summoned a shadow clone with unspoken instructions to find Naruto and Sai, but stay out of sight wherever possible; it was unwise for a reformed war criminal to run around in a foreign country alone. The clone nodded and vanished, leaving Sasuke to take a seat on the window sill and wait.

The rain was picking up again, as it was wont to do in Ame. The smell was fresh, and the breeze was wonderful on his skin. He had a good view of the city, buildings much taller than any they had back in Konoha, sleek and stylish; while Konoha was rebuilding, Ame appeared to be thriving. Sasuke had to wonder at the identity of their Kage. What kind of person could keep a highly industrialized village like this thriving, even after the devastating aftermath of the war?

Sakura shifted on the bed, and when he glanced over at her, he saw that she was now facing him. Pink hair fell messily from her sloppy ponytail, bangs framing her face and dusting across her forehead. She slept delicately, a refreshing change for a roommate of his after so many nights sharing rooms with Naruto, who snored, and Sai, who talked in his sleep. She'd left room for him on the large-sized bed, but he had absolutely no intentions of sharing it with her.

He knew he made Sakura uncomfortable. He knew she only slept easily in his presence because she was chakra depleted. What was more, he refused himself the temptation of slipping into bed with his icy, beautiful teammate; he knew absolutely no good could come from tempting himself with what he could never have.

Suddenly, he felt his clone vanish, and the information he'd gathered rushed into his head. Naruto and Sai were on their way back from meeting with the Kage, and Sasuke's clone had given them instructions on where to reach he and Sakura. They would tell him everything when they got there. Sifting through the clone's memories, Sasuke noted with no small amount of unease that the expressions on Naruto and Sai's faces looked very grim.

_That can't be good,_ he thought, broodingly returning to his thoughts from earlier and banishing thoughts of his tempting teammate to the furthest reaches of his mind. _Tsunade sent Sakura, and no other medics, to heal everyone from the mining accident, even though they needed more. And Naruto and Sai looked concerned after their meeting, which should only have been a meet-and-greet. What's missing? What's going on here?_

Then, it struck him. Remembering the way the two Ame guards had accepted Sakura instantly into their village, because of her contribution to the medical unit in the war, the revered way she was regarded at the Ame hospital by the somewhat inexperienced medics, and the tearfully grateful way she'd been received by the innkeeper, Sasuke realized Tsunade had sent Sakura because she was somebody Ame trusted.

That wasn't a good sign. After the war, the hope had been that international relations would have been overhauled. Improved. Even if Konoha and Ame were on ill terms before, it was the widely-held notion that after the war had ended, they would honor the peace treaty established between them. A clean slate.

Sakura healed everyone during the war indiscriminately, regardless of which village they hailed from. Shinobi from Ame, Iwa, Kiri, everywhere had come to her for aid and she'd given it. Sasuke was sure that the same couldn't be said for every single medic in the tents. The celebrity she enjoyed here was proof that Ame had taken notice of her strict adherence to the Hippocratic Oath.

Sakura's determination to do the right thing was renowned even hundreds of miles away from her home. Recalling her resolve to purge Konoha of its own corruption, he grit his teeth and refused to dwell on that at the moment.

Tsunade hadn't sent more medics to Ame because she'd wanted to win their trust in Sakura. It was a peacemaking effort on the surface.

Underneath, Sasuke wasn't so sure.

_They'd never suspect Sakura to be a spy,_ he thought, frowning deeply as he tried to puzzle out what was happening. _Which is what would make her such a good one, if Tsunade told her to be. Anyone else, they'd be suspicious of. But Sakura, and Team 7?_

The mining accident that didn't look like an accident. The unknown identity of the Ame Kage. The assignment of Team 7 to this mission. The exclusion of other Konoha medics, even when they were needed. It all added up to something, but Sasuke couldn't figure out what.

_Ame's up to something,_ he deduced slowly. _Or at least, Tsunade thinks so. But what?_

Nothing made sense. Not to mention, his self-imposed mission of convincing Sakura she was crazy to think of overthrowing the Konoha Council had yet to be completed. There were so many layers to this assignment, so many ulterior motives concealed behind what should have been a mission of emergency aid to an ally who needed it.

The war was supposed to have mended relations between the villages. But just months after its completion, those tenuous bonds were beginning to fray. Konoha suspected Ame of something. He just didn't know what.

But he did know that whatever was going on here, his team was about to be caught in the crossfire. It was only a question of when.

* * *

**note..** Hi, everyone! :) Missed you and missed this story. Hope you liked Chapter 5!

PS: Thank you to everyone who's being supportive of this crazy lame plagiarism drama. Missblissthegreat, I'm sure, appreciates all the reviews she's been getting, thanks to her hard work ripping off people's stories. The situation sucks, but I appreciate everyone who's had my back. :) Thank you, muffins!

So how'd I do?


	6. Common Ground

Rain was falling, when Sakura woke up hours later.

At least, she assumed it was hours later. In Ame, it was always hard to gauge time, what with the near constant rainfall and the darkness that never really abated. Not two days into her mission, and Sakura found herself longing for the bright sunny skies and lush green trees of Konoha.

She sat up groggily from the bed, her muscles sore, her head throbbing. She recognized the symptoms of chakra depletion, and absently cursed herself for her shortsightedness.

Looking around, she saw she wasn't alone. Sasuke was sitting on the window sill, eyes shut, presumably asleep. She felt irrationally guilty; she knew she hadn't made this mission easy on him so far.

Remembering his aversion to her plan, though, she shook away her remorse. Sasuke's role in this was the same as his role in every other facet of her life: he was an obstacle, and one she would have to overcome.

Her reserves were relatively low, but improving, which was a good sign. She spared a tiny amount, directing a stream of chakra into her head to loosen the tension in her temples. A few moments' careful concentration, and she let out a breathy sigh in relief. It was always easier to think when her head wasn't pounding a thunderous cadence as a reminder to her carelessness.

Not wanting to wake Sasuke, she swung her legs cautiously over the side of the bed, to find that she was barefoot; someone had removed her boots for her. Blushing at the thought that it might have been Sasuke, and hating herself for blushing, she took a careful step onto the plush carpet with all the intention in the world of creeping into the bathroom for a hot shower uninterrupted by her teammate, when the smooth, deep baritone of his voice stopped her dead.

"You're awake," he observed needlessly.

The detached way in which he spoke rankled her, and she threw a glare over her shoulder at him.

"Obviously," she said, her voice cold. "Where are the others?"

"On their way," Sasuke retorted. He was staring at her, arms folded in expectation.

"If you're waiting for a continuation to our conversation back in Konoha, don't hold your breath. I got my answer from you already, I don't need anything more."

"What happened to your family that you didn't tell me." His question was not phrased as such, almost never was, and his expression remained frustratingly calm. She hated that about him, hated how no matter what the situation was, he was always able to effect this mask of apathy that somehow elevated him from the rest of the world. Calm, cold, demanding.

"Nothing you need to concern yourself with," she said stiffly.

"I'm your teammate, aren't I, Sakura?" He stood, and she despised the way he said her name. Slowly, enunciating every syllable, a breathy almost-whisper that sent an unwanted spike of _something_ coursing through her bloodstream. The subtle, mocking inflection he gave to the word 'teammate' did not go unnoticed, and her eyes narrowed into dangerous slits as he approached her. "Or were those just words?"

"_You're_ one to be lecturing me on the importance of _teammates,_" she hissed.

The calm expression on his face faltered for the barest of seconds, his dark eyes flashing almost red, and Sakura figured out what she hated most about Uchiha Sasuke, more than his aloof, icy attitude, more than his frustratingly demanding nature, more than how unsettled he made her feel.

It was his eyes.

Itachi's eyes.

She knew why his quick replacement surgery was a necessity, knew that without his brother's ocular donation, Sasuke would be blind by now. She knew the logic of it, understood it completely. The Eternal Mangekyou was a fierce, almost insurmountable obstacle for an opponent to face, which enhanced his near-invincible abilities on the battlefield. His Sharingan was beautiful and devastating, the gunmetal gray color of his irises stormy and attractive.

But they weren't his eyes. And the knowledge that she would never look into the black, fathomless eyes of the boy she loved since childhood made her sick.

These were the eyes of a murderer, of a defector, of a traitor who still hadn't won her trust back, despite what many would consider an impressive attempt at redeeming himself. They served as an example to something she wasn't proud of, but couldn't deny:

"You don't trust me."

Sasuke spoke the words that painted themselves across her heart like rust on steel. She said nothing in response, confirming his deduction. His lip curled into a sneer, and he looked away like he was disgusted with her.

And what the hell was so wrong with being unable to trust him? He'd damn well earned it, hadn't he? Her misgivings around him? Her doubt that he was really back, back to stay, back forever, the same little boy she used to love? How could he stand there with that aloof, high-and-mighty attitude, acting like she was betraying _him_ with her uneasiness?

They were teammates in name, but not in practice. The notion left a sour feeling in her stomach, and she bit her lip.

"You tried to kill me," she bit out, and to her horror, the words sounded breathy and pathetic, rather than hard and severe, which she'd been going for.

The phantom memory of his grip around her throat, like ice, the crazed look in his eyes, remorseless in his intent…the burning of Chidori, palpable even if it never actually touched her, still had her waking in a cold sweat sometimes. Had her shying away from him while they ate ramen together with Naruto, Sai, and Kakashi-sensei. Had her assigning him positions during missions to ensure that they would have to interact as little as possible.

Far from crumpling in contrition, the way she expected, the way she felt she deserved, Sasuke's sneer became more pronounced, and he flashstepped in front of her in the span of a second. Instinctively, her hand dropped to her weapons pouch, and it was all she could do not to draw a weapon in outright threat at his suddenly close proximity.

"Hypocrite," he accused, his voice dark and contemptuous.

She recalled the kunai she'd brought with her to end him, recalled the deception to her fellow comrades to ensure that she was the one, alone, who would face Uchiha Sasuke, who would take his life to save his soul. She recalled the way she _couldn't go through with it_ no matter what.

"You tried to kill me, too," he reminded her icily. "And you've got the nerve to talk to me about trust? I'm not the one trying to stage a _rebellion_."

Sakura flinched but held her ground, wishing they were anywhere but a tiny one-bedroom hotel room hidden from the rest of the world. Those damn _eyes_ terrified her for no logical reason, made it hard for her to think, made it hard for her to _breathe._ But like hell was she going to cower before him like some useless, third-rate kunoichi.

"I should never have told you about anything," she whispered. "I thought…I thought maybe…you might understand. But I was wrong, so just _let it go._ If anything goes wrong, you'll get to say 'I told you so.'"

"You'd be _dead_ if anything went wrong!" he snapped, losing his temper at last.

"Which I'm sure would be the most _devastating_ thing in the world for you, right, _Sasuke-kun?_"

She spat his affectionate name like a filthy swear, and Sasuke recoiled as though slapped. She never would have dreamed the name would have had such an effect on him, but to see him so riled up was bitterly rewarding. The desire to smash his face in, to cause him physical pain to some pitiful degree in comparison to the psychological torture he'd inflicted on her for the past four years, became overwhelming.

"Stay here and wait for Naruto and Sai," she snapped. "I'm going back to the hospital."

"The hell you are. Your reserves are too low."

"That sounds suspiciously like a _subordinate_ questioning the authority of a _captain,_" Sakura hissed, knowing it would wound his pride.

Sasuke shrugged off the command like it was nothing, and seemed to think even less of her attempt to abandon this conversation, if it could be called that. Instead, he took another step closer and murmured, "What's your mission, Sakura?"

She frowned in confusion. "What? What the hell are you talking about?"

"Your mission in Ame. It's not just to heal, is it."

She had no idea where he was going with this, nor did she have time to figure it out.

"If you sustained a head injury while I was unconscious, I can examine it when I get back. Till then, get the _hell_ out of my way."

"I don't want to use Sharingan on you," Sasuke said, his voice louder, the threat unmistakable, "but I will if you keep lying to me."

This time she didn't bother stopping herself from reaching for her weapons. In the span of a second, a kunai was drawn and pressed tightly against his throat; he surely could have blocked her, was so much faster than she was and in a league of his own that not even her elite skills could hold a candle to, but he didn't move. Scarlet beads of blood slipped from the tiny slit on his pale skin, but there was no satisfaction in it.

Not when he dismissed her abilities so thoroughly that he couldn't even be bothered to defend himself.

"Once a traitor, always a traitor," she whispered, her fingers flexing on the kunai, her gaze fierce on his gunmetal eyes. "Using your kekkai genkai on a _comrade?_"

"I know something else is going on here, Sakura," he murmured, not flinching even though every word he spoke pressed the blade closer and closer to his neck. "Something you're not telling me…why the hell, for example, the Hokage didn't send more than just you to heal hundreds of people."

Sakura frowned, but not in anger; in suspicion. Sasuke had a fair point.

It was easy to forget about any doubts she might have when she was elbow-deep in someone's chest cavity, trying to remove massive splinters from their lungs. She hadn't had time to think about anything since arriving to Ame except how to treat the enormous influx of patients from the mining collapse that they had yet to investigate.

She lowered the kunai slowly, brow furrowed in thought.

"You know, I'm wondering the same thing," she said carefully. "Any of the younger-ranking medic-nin would have been an asset to this mission. Ino-pig was available, I know that, not to mention any of the others…it would be egotistical of me to assume I could handle every injury here on my own, there's just too many."

Temporarily forgetting her personal quarrel with Sasuke in the face of this brand new dilemma, she took a seat on the edge of the bed she'd just vacated, absently wiping Sasuke's blood off her kunai with the hem of her skirt; seeing it brought her no satisfaction, only guilt.

Sasuke watched her carefully, then looked over to the window. "The dobe's back."

Not a split second later did the window fly open, and Naruto and Sai landed in the room, both of them soaked with rain and looking tired.

"Sakura-chan!" Naruto said, blue eyes widening as he looked at her. She didn't know why he looked so horrified until she looked down at her clothes, and saw that they were stained with blood. Understanding, she shook her head.

"It's not mine," she said. "I was healing. I'm fine, just tired. How'd it go with the Kage?"

"That's just it," Naruto sighed, collapsing on the bed next to her. "You're not gonna believe who it was."

Sakura looked from Naruto to Sasuke, whose expression was unreadable but certainly not calm as he looked at her, and privately thought that there were very few things lately she would _not_ believe.

* * *

Sasuke was very good at reading liars with or without the use of his Sharingan. Sakura seemed completely revolted by the idea that he would use his kekkei genkai on her, but not fearful of what he might find if he did. The confusion on her face when he asked her about the real nature of her mission seemed very genuine. The Sakura he knew was not a good liar.

But not for the first time since this mission had begun did he note the fact that this Sakura was completely different than the one he used to know. He had no idea what she was capable of anymore, and the knowledge that he didn't trust her anymore than she trusted him did not sit well with him.

_What's going on here?_ He thought, frustrated with his inability to come up with the right answer. _So many things are happening all at once…what is this mission REALLY about?_

"Who's the new Kage?" Sakura asked Naruto, who'd thrown himself across the bed like he owned it. Sasuke wasn't sure why, but he disliked the picture the pair of them made, casually chatting on the same bed. "And why wouldn't we believe it?"

"Because it's someone who's supposed to be dead," Naruto said, and he was clearly trying to drag out the revelation as long as possible, for dramatic effect.

"Spit it out, dobe," Sasuke snapped, in no mood for anything but concrete answers. He felt Sakura's curious gaze on his face but ignored it.

"You're no fun," Naruto sighed. "There's such a thing as dramatic build-up, and…"

"Damn it, Naruto, enough!" Sakura hissed. "Tell us!"

"It's Aoi."

"Aoi?" Sakura echoed, frowning. "That name rings a bell…"

"Rokusho Aoi," Naruto clarified.

It sounded familiar to Sasuke, too, but he couldn't quite nail it down. His path had crossed Naruto's and Sakura's very rarely over the last few years before his return to Konoha, so it had to have been before that when they encountered this mysterious new Kage.

"Oh! From that mission we had in the Land of Tea?" Sakura looked astonished as Naruto nodded to confirm, and Sasuke's frown deepened.

Vaguely, sifting through memories he hadn't revisited in years, he recalled a jonin with an umbrella full of needles who'd nearly gotten the drop on him. An old familiar anger erupted in his stomach when he recalled the way Rokusho Aoi had belittled him, mocked his Uchiha legacy, dismissed him as weak.

"Yup. With Ibiki's brother." Naruto kicked off his sandals and sighed.

"He was the one with Senju Hashirama's sword," Sakura mused. "He fell off the cliff, though…and a fall from that height, jonin or not, should've killed him…"

"The person we encountered tonight was very much alive," Sai reported, standing by the window. "He seemed to recall your previous interaction with good-natured humor."

Sasuke remembered Sakura flinging herself off a cliff to save him midair, and found nothing humorous about it.

"I tell ya, man, something ain't right," Naruto chimed in. "No one's heard of him in years. Then all of a sudden he pops up outta nowhere, takes control of Ame…"

"Not to mention he's a Konoha defector," Sakura added. He ignored the significant look she shot him. "Why would the Ame shinobi accept a leader who's a traitor from another village? Especially Konoha. Until lately, we haven't been on good terms with Ame."

"What did he say when you met with him?" Sasuke wanted to know, thinking hard, and very close to telling Sakura he doubted Konoha and Ame were on good terms even now.

"He just welcomed us to the village," Naruto said, frowning. "It was weird. Sai's right, he acted like we were old friends or something. Wasn't even pissed I broke the sword he had Idate steal for him, just said he was glad to have our help and if we ever needed anything to let him know."

"Sasuke's right," Sakura said suddenly, and his gaze snapped to her face at her reluctant admission. She was staring right back at him, the expression on her face grave. "Something's off about this mission."

"What d'you mean, Sakura-chan?"

"The mining collapse…in a highly-industrialized village like this one? We haven't gotten a chance to investigate it yet, but that's already plenty suspicious. Then, Tsunade-shishou only sends me to assist with the healing, but assigns three bodyguards to come with me, instead of three additional medic-nin, even though we had plenty who would come along with us. Then, the fact that a Konoha traitor, who's supposed to have died five _years_ ago, is now the brand new Kage of a village with Akatsuki leanings, and no one outside of Ame is even aware of it?"

Sasuke was often frustrated by Sakura's stubbornness, but he would never say she wasn't an asset; she seemed to have caught all the things that made him suspicious of this mission, and was properly unnerved by them.

"Yeah, something's wrong," Naruto agreed. "But baachan would've told us the truth from the get-go, right?"

Sasuke privately disagreed with that. Naruto and Sakura might cling to the naïve ideology that the authority figures were looking out for their best interests, but after his entire family had been obliterated overnight in a bloody move of forceful suppression, he was slower to believe that.

"Tsunade-shishou trusts us," Sakura said firmly. "She would never have sent us on a mission without giving us all the information she had. Whatever her reasoning was for sending us here…I trust it."

He sighed in irritation. Sakura's devotion to her master was blinding her to the truth of what was happening.

Not that he was any closer to figuring out that truth than she was.

"Here's what we'll do," Sakura said quietly. "I'll go back to the hospital tomorrow to finish the healing, I still have a lot of patients to take care of, but I need to replenish my chakra stores." She avoided Sasuke's eye, but he was satisfied that she'd taken his advice nonetheless. "We'll rest here for tonight…then we'll branch out tomorrow and try and get the feel of what the Ame citizens think about Aoi. Figuring out how he's received here by the people…not just the shinobi, but the civilians, too…should be really enlightening."

It was a good plan, Sasuke had to give her that. Part of their mission was to communicate to Tsunade the political climate in Ame after the war, and what better way to figure out the truth of the village than to go right to the people who lived there? Civilians, especially, were more inclined to offer truthful accounts to foreign shinobi, simply because they didn't know to keep their mouths shut.

"I'll go with Teme," Naruto volunteered. "We'll look around here and try and get some answers. Sai should stay with you, Sakura-chan. While you're healing everyone at the hospital."

Sakura nodded curtly, and Sasuke got the sense that she was relieved to have someone shadowing her that wasn't going to browbeat her for explanations.

"Good idea, Naruto."

"There's a first time for everything," Sasuke said nastily.

"Say that again, Teme!" Naruto shouted, but Sakura cut him off.

"Shut up, both of you. We need to rest, not fight; I don't have the chakra to heal you both if you decide to tear each other apart."

"That's fine, Sakura-chan, as long as you have enough to heal me and let Teme rot, then…"

"Enough! I'm going to shower, I suggest all of you get some sleep so we're on top of our game tomorrow. Geez."

With that she hopped off the bed, deftly sidestepped Sasuke, slipped into the bathroom, and shut the door. The sound of the showerhead flicking on followed a few moments later.

"Did you ask Sakura about…you know?" Naruto asked curiously, and Sasuke's eyes narrowed.

"Hn. She wouldn't tell me."

"Why don't you want her to do this, man? This would mean justice for your family, too."

Sasuke was aware of Sai's presence in the room, and took that as confirmation that he already knew what Naruto was talking about. Apparently the dobe couldn't keep his mouth shut about Sakura's insane plan, only reaffirming his conviction that the wrong people would find out, and Sakura would be punished.

"Perhaps it is because Uchiha does not understand Sakura-san's motivation that he is so against her plan?" Sai suggested benignly from the corner.

"What IS her motivation?" Sasuke demanded, furious and insanely jealous that Sai was privvy to information that he was denied. He crossed the room in three strides to stare his milk-white doppleganger in the face. "Why's she doing this?"

"Sai, don't-!" Naruto began, but Sai could always be counted upon to be oblivious to human subtlety.

"After Sakura-san left us in her failed mission to kill you," he said mildly, "the Elders were suspicious that perhaps she was an accomplice in your plan to assassinate Danzou-sama."

Naruto groaned, looking horrified, but Sasuke's eyes were wide with shock.

"What?" he ground out. "What do you mean? She came to _kill_ me, not help me!"

"It appeared to be suspicious. She returns unscathed to Konoha, Danzou-sama is murdered, and the killer runs free. It was thought by Koharu-sama and Homura-sama that she either assisted in the murder, or helped you escape. An interrogation revealed nothing, but their suspicions remained, and prior to Tsunade-sama's recovery, they authorized the assassination of Sakura's parents in punishment."

Sasuke's jaw dropped. Shock overtook him, and that same hatred he thought had long since cooled reignited with passion.

"She…_what are you saying?_"

Naruto looked furious that Sai had spilled the truth before Sakura could, but now that it was out there, all that could be done was to clarify what was going on. He smacked Sai in the back of the head before turning to Sasuke, looking bitterly remorseful.

"That's why she wants to try the Elders. She knows what you're going through, Sasuke-teme. Maybe not exactly, but…"

"They killed my family because the Uchiha were going to stage a coup d'etat," Sasuke bit out sharply. "They were a threat. Sakura's parents were _civilians._"

The truth was nauseating. Sasuke felt revolted to be wearing the Konoha hitai-ate. The Elders had had Sakura's parents, innocent, uninvolved civilians, killed in cruel punishment. At least when they had authorized the extermination of the Uchiha Clan, it was to wipe out an existent threat.

This was not removing a threat.

This was cold, calculated murder.

All at once, Sakura's motivation became clear. Like the first time he'd seen the world through Itachi's eyes, and realized that what he thought was perfect sight was cloudy and almost blind until he'd seen through clear eyes. Her stubborn resolution, her determination to see the political overthrow through even at the cost of her own life, if it came to that, all of it suddenly made sense.

He was filled with a bitter self-loathing. All this time he'd been home, all this time he'd labored under the delusion that Sakura could never really understand him, all this time he'd spent with her, and he'd never even once asked about her family.

No wonder she hadn't told him.

"Don't tell her you know yet, Teme," Naruto said quickly, and Sasuke saw him shoot a furtive look to the bathroom door, where Sakura was showering. "She…she should've been the one to tell you." He glared at Sai, who remained blissfully oblivious to the havoc he'd just caused, but Sasuke, as frustrated as he was with Sai's inclusion on the team while he remained an outlier member, was grateful for his slip-up, without which he might never have understood Haruno Sakura's reasoning for this madness.

"We need to focus on this mission first," Naruto said firmly. "Figure out what the hell's going on over here, and get everyone patched up that we can before we report back to baachan."

Sasuke wanted to press the matter, wanted to vent this anger somehow, but knew his idiot best friend was right. They had a mission to complete first, and he knew that Sakura would prioritize that over everything else. Rash decisions at this moment, and even rasher actions, wouldn't help the situation, wouldn't bring back his family or Sakura's, would only destroy them.

He'd need to take some time to think over what he'd just learned, before trying to confront Sakura again.

She emerged from the shower, damp-haired, clean, and smiling brightly at all of them, feeling much better obviously, and she chatted happily as she brushed through her hair. To look to her, you would never know what he'd just learned about her, the horrible truth behind her pretty face and pretty smile.

Haruno Sakura, he mused, was never meant for this life, even if she thrived at it. She was the good one, the kind one, the pretty one, meant for smiling and happiness at every turn. It was what made her such an incomprehensible entity to him all their lives; she had everything he could ever want. Family and friends who loved her for who she was, compassion for others and happiness around every corner, but still she plowed forward with this kunoichi lifestyle, even if it brought her nothing but pain.

It was what divided them so ruthlessly as genin. It was what made Sakura so difficult for him to get along with: their lack of common ground.

Bitterly, as he stared at her with a brand new perspective, he knew he never wanted their common ground to be this blood-splattered reality neither one of them could escape from.

* * *

**note..** hi everyone! thank you so much for the reviews. writing in-universe is a real challenge for me; it's much easier to write AUs since there's a bit more wiggle room. here, not quite so much. but i'm enjoying it, and i have a whole new appreciation for the writers on this site who write in-universe. it's no joke, yafeelme.

and i realize aoi is a somewhat random, specious character to pull out of seemingly nowhere, but there's a reason for it, pinky swear. i hope you liked this chapter, and are looking forward to the next one, now that sakura's ambition is a bit more clear. let me know what you think!

xoxo daisy


	7. Punishment

The rain in Ame really was quite depressing after awhile. She'd only been there for two days, but already she was exhausted by it. There was something so melancholy about rain that wouldn't let up, and even if she enjoyed an occasional shower here and there, she found herself almost mourning her hot Konoha summer sun. It felt like ages ago when she'd felt the warmth on her skin.

_No wonder Ame had such a problem with Konoha,_ she thought dryly, stepping inside the hospital with a quiet Sai beside her. _I'd be pissed, too, if I had to have rain 365 days a year and my enemies had perfect weather._

The head medic-nin, a kindly man named Makoto, met her at the front desk as she lowered her hood and revealed herself. He looked exhausted and relieved to see her, bowing in greeting to both of them.

"Hello again, Sakura-san," he said, and she was glad he didn't call her –sama. It always felt weird to be addressed like that, when she was still just seventeen. Tsunade had taught her many things: humility was one of them. "Did you sleep well?"

"Very well, thank you," Sakura replied with a quick, professional smile. "This is Sai, one of my teammates," she added, introducing the silent shinobi next to her.

"Very nice to meet you, Sai-san," said Makoto. "Are you a medic-nin as well?"

"No," said Sakura. "But he can lift if we need him to."

"Very good. Then let's get started, if you don't mind. We have several shinobi who survived the night but require follow-up surgeries, most of our medic-nin would feel more comfortable if you were there to supervise. The civilian doctors are working on those with minor wounds as well; everyone who can be released has been."

"Excellent." Sakura loved nothing more than working with medic-nin who knew what they were doing, and who could communicate and delegate efficiently. "Did anyone die?" she added.

"None, since you helped us," Makoto replied with a shaky, relieved smile, pushing his glasses up his nose as they headed into an examination room together. "You're…really as talented as they say you are. Ame is lucky to have you here, we all are."

Sakura smiled back, but her thoughts were wandering to Naruto and Sasuke. She wondered how their information gathering was going. After their discussion last night, they all seemed to agree that their motives for being in Ame were questionable at best; she hoped they would figure out something concrete.

* * *

"Man, this place sure is _advanced,_" Naruto whistled through his teeth, as they made their way through the streets. Sasuke begrudgingly had to agree; Ame was highly industrialized, with enormous buildings and all the latest technology. They had to have a huge source of revenue to keep a place like this going.

He sort of missed Konoha, which was almost quaint when compared to this village.

It was tiresome, this constant rain. The more time he spent here, the more disgruntled he was. He didn't like not having all the information to himself, it made him feel powerless and vulnerable. And Sakura might blindly trust Tsunade, but Sasuke knew something was very wrong about what was going on.

Remembering what Sai had told him about her parents made his stomach ache, and he said nothing in reply.

Naruto, however, was bizarrely perceptive. He looked at his friend quizzically for a few moments as they walked aimlessly through rainy Ame, before saying, his voice low, "It's not your fault, man. There wasn't anything you could've done to stop it."

Sasuke's eyes narrowed and he remained silent.

"She probably just didn't want to upset you," Naruto pressed, apparently not getting the hint. "She didn't want to…"

"Give me another reason to kill them?" Sasuke snapped.

Naruto glanced around them furtively to make sure nobody was listening in on their conversation, but the streets were nearly deserted with the bad weather. He then grabbed Sasuke's arm and tugged him down a nearby alley.

"You better watch what you say, teme," Naruto hissed. "You're already on thin ice as it is!"

"I don't need a warning from _you._"

"Think about it, man! We don't know who we can trust in Ame yet, anybody could be listening! If the wrong person heard the wrong thing, it could get right back to Konoha and think about what the Elders would do to you _this_ time around!"

"Why didn't you do something?" Sasuke demanded, furious. It didn't make any sense. If Naruto and Sai – and presumably, Kakashi as well – all knew the truth about the Harunos' murder, why had nobody done anything in response? Why had Tsunade, of all people, allowed the Elders to live after the war without so much as an inquiry?

"We couldn't prove it," Naruto replied quickly. "We know what happened, but we'd need solid evidence to do anything about it. And Sakura-chan was always really clear that we couldn't just go off and kill them, it wouldn't solve anything. It wouldn't change what they did and it would just feed into the same cycle of revenge."

That hit a little too close to home.

"It's why you haven't assassinated them," Naruto added softly. "Right? Even knowing what they did to your family. You had to break the cycle. Sakura doesn't want them to get away with what they did to her parents and your family and everyone else they screwed over all this time, but she's trying to go about it legally."

Legally.

Sasuke's eyes widened, as so many things started to fall into place. Tsunade sending one medic-nin and a rather bloated bodyguard team, right after Sasuke learned what Sakura was planning to do…

"This…this trial Sakura's planning," he murmured, his Sharingan activating as he surveyed his surroundings, making sure no one was listening in. "She told the Hokage about it."

"'Course she did, she trusts baachan."

"Did she tell anyone else? Besides Team 7?"

Naruto was frowning now, looking more confused than usual. "No…what're you getting at, teme?"

Maybe he didn't understand _everything_ that was going on – namely, the tenuous situation in Ame – but one thing was suddenly crystal clear.

"The Hokage didn't send Sakura here just to heal," he murmured, black eyes narrowing into slits, his arms folded. "She wanted to get her out of Konoha."

Naruto's eyes widened as he finally caught on. "You mean…"

Sasuke's jaw was set in a grim line as he said quietly, "Aa. Someone might have found out what Sakura's planning with the Council."

It all made perfect sense now, at least this part, anyway. If Koharu and Homura found out that Sakura was planning an indictment, she would be instantly arrested (in the best case scenario) or assassinated (in the worst.) It was imperative that she handle her plan delicately, because if the wrong people found out, Sasuke had no doubt that Sakura, even with her ridiculous strength, would be taken out swiftly and immediately. If the Hokage had sent her on this hazy mission with no less than three protectors, she was clearly worried that Sakura's secret might get out.

If it hadn't already.

"We're going to the hospital," Sasuke decided firmly, activating his Sharingan. "I'll take over from Sai, and you two can see if you can dig up any information on Aoi and his advisors."

"You don't trust Sai to protect her?" Naruto asked suspiciously. "He's ANBU, man, he's more than capable of…"

"I don't care," Sasuke snapped. "I'm the only one that can get through to her about this."

He wasn't sure how he knew that – Sakura certainly trusted Naruto and Sai, and perhaps both of them much more than she trusted him – but now that he knew her reasoning for wanting to try the Elders, it was impossible not to feel a deeper connection to her. Even if he never wanted their bond to be forged from the blood of their loved ones, now, at the very least, he and Sakura had finally found some common ground. It was why she'd come to him first, with her seemingly insane idea to indict the Elders. He understood now why she wouldn't have run to someone more willing to help her, like Naruto, or Kakashi; they wouldn't understand her the way he did. They didn't have as much to lose.

He had to tell Sakura what he thought was going on. He regretted that he'd ever doubted her motives on this mission, even for a moment; it would appear that Tsunade hadn't told her precious apprentice her real reasoning for sending her to Ame on this incomprehensible mission. Sakura had been given orders – to heal the wounded at the hospital – and was following them to the letter, but he knew she had to know that she might already have been compromised back in Konoha.

Naruto hesitated, clearly weighing the pros and cons of what Sasuke had just revealed, before he sighed, scratching the back of his head. "You sure you'll be able to talk to her without her punching you through a wall?" he asked hesitantly. "You two can't be alone together for two minutes without fighting."

Sasuke suppressed the urge to roll his eyes and didn't bother answering. Instead he turned back towards the mouth of the alley, keeping one hand on the hilt of Kusanagi for reassurance. He didn't know who he could trust in this high-tech, rainy city besides the three people he'd come in with, and now that there was an entirely new dimension to this mission, he was much more ill at ease. What if Koharu and Homura had already dispatched assassins to track down Sakura and her teammates?

"Let's go," he said sharply, flashstepping towards the hospital with a reluctant Naruto in tow.

* * *

"Your leg's looking much better today, Akihiro-san," said Sakura brightly, as she changed the bandages.

"All thanks to you, Haruno-san," replied the Ame chunin, blushing a little from his place on the hospital bed. "It was a rookie mistake. I went down in the mine to see if I could recover any survivors, when one of the elevator cables snapped and hit my leg. Nearly sliced it off! I'm lucky you were there to help."

"Not at all," Sakura said with a smile, marking down the boy's progress on his medical chart. "All right, you're good to go. Make sure you're changing the bandages regularly, and that you drink plenty of water and eat plenty of healthy foods to expedite the healing process. Any changes, you feel like it might be infected, you spike a fever, you come see me, understand?"

"Yes, ma'am," replied Akihiro-san, bowing as he stood up off the bed on crutches, testing his weight on his wounded leg. "Feels better already. Thank you, Haruno-san."

"My pleasure," she replied. "If you'll excuse me, I have more patients to check up on."

With that she left his exam room, a silent Sai trailing behind her. She was certainly getting her money's worth on this mission; many of the injuries she was still examining required quite a bit of chakra to fix. She'd gotten lucky with Akihiro-san, having been able to treat him without chakra, but she was rapidly running out. What she wouldn't give, for Tsunade-shishou's yin seal…

"Dickless and Asshole are here, Hag," Sai murmured quietly in her ear, and no sooner had she processed his words than she felt two familiar chakra signatures approaching. "Perhaps they have recovered pertinent information."

"Hopefully," Sakura replied with a sigh, turning around to face her teammates. Indeed, Naruto and Sasuke, deftly avoiding the doctors and medic-nin scurrying through the busy hospital hallways, were coming towards her from the stairwell, looking remarkably out of place in their Konoha nin gear. Sasuke in particular cut a rather impressive path, everyone else ducking and darting out of his way automatically. Ignoring the familiar twinge of attraction, she addressed her teammates professionally. "What's wrong, you guys? We thought you were seeing to your half of the mission."

"Pitching change, Sakura-chan!" Naruto said cheerfully. "Sai, you and I are gonna see what we can dig up in Ame; the teme needs to talk to you, Sakura-chan. It's important, so you guys need to play nice."

Sakura's eyes narrowed and her grip on her clipboard tightened marginally. "Is there a reason you're deviating from our original plan?" she asked coolly. "I still have many patients to attend to."

"Then I'll wait," Sasuke said flatly, sounding remarkably unruffled by her displeasure. He moved purposefully beside her, one hand on the hilt of his sword as if he expected to be attacked at a moment's notice.

She was too tired and too busy to argue with Sasuke about something so petty – really, as long as someone on their team got a feel for the village, it didn't matter who – so she merely sighed and shrugged her shoulders.

"Okay, whatever. I'll finish up here in the next few hours or so, and Sasuke can tell me whatever he's got to tell me. We'll all reconvene at the hotel at dusk, understood?"

"Sure thing, Sakura-chan!" Naruto said brightly, with his trademark grin. "Let's go, Sai! See you around, teme. Don't be mean to Sakura-chan or I'll kick your ass."

"Dobe," Sasuke muttered, as half of their team blinked out of existence. He fell into step beside Sakura, who was thoroughly irritated at his presence. After their argument the night before, she wasn't too eager to pick a fight with him again. Besides, part of her was curious as to why he'd interrupted their mission just to switch places with Sai. What was so important, it couldn't wait until they met up at the hotel that evening?

"Is this really important, Sasuke?" she asked, sweeping down the hallway to check on a man with a broken jaw. "I'm a bit busy at the moment…"

He stopped in the doorway of the exam room she just entered and replied quietly, "I'll tell you when you're done, but yes. It _is_ really important."

She didn't get the sense that he was mocking her, like she usually did, and even if his face was apathetic, she could read the tension in his body like a book. His broad shoulders were tight in the damp black sleeveless training shirt he was wearing, the coiled muscles in his arms tense and ready, his jaw set, his eyes sweeping across the room and everyone in the hallway behind him. Even if she didn't trust him, it was impossible not to feel safe in his presence; everything about him was lethal. He was definitely somebody you wanted to have on your side.

Remembering how quickly she'd gone to him with her idea of replacing the Council, she knew that even if she didn't trust his loyalty, she had wanted, from the bottom of her heart, to have him on her side.

"I won't be much longer," she promised quietly, examining the man's broken jaw with her Mystical Palm Technique. "I did most of the heavy work last night and this morning; the other medic-nin and the civilian doctors are doing a good job with everybody else."

He nodded curtly and returned his attention to the hallway. His grip never relaxed on the hilt of his sword.

* * *

Sakura was finished just two hours later. Sasuke was impressed at her efficiency, even if he never actually told her. She'd tended to everyone, given instructions to the other doctors on what to do in her absence, and was out the door with him well before dark. She turned her hood up against the rain and he did the same, before making their way towards a small restaurant a few blocks from the hospital.

It wouldn't look suspicious to see a young boy and girl having lunch together at a restaurant, and suspicion was exactly what they wanted to avoid. Discussing what he needed to tell her in a dark alley was the perfect way to attract attention, especially in a foreign shinobi village; he sorely regretted his talk with Naruto earlier, there were way too many people who could have been listening in.

But to anyone who saw a boy and girl talking over lunch in hushed voices, it would look like a date to people who didn't know them, and just a simple discussion between teammates to people who did. It was amazing how much you could hide in a room full of people.

The restaurant was busy. Sasuke had to guess that most businesses in Ame were busy, since they afforded the citizens a break from the incessant rainfall outside. But more people meant they would be harder to overhear, which suited him fine. They stepped inside and lowered their hoods, and a cursory sweep of the interior of the building revealed that apart from the occasional stir of interest from various people in the place who found them attractive, they weren't receiving any suspicious glances.

"Good afternoon," the hostess said pleasantly, batting her eyelashes up at Sasuke and completely ignoring Sakura. He rolled his eyes, more than used to this kind of behavior. He remembered a time when seeing him receive such blatant attention from a female would have sent Sakura into a jealous rage; times had changed, clearly, because a quick glance at her direction revealed a little smirk of amusement on her petal pink lips. "How many in your party?"

"Two," Sasuke replied dully.

The hostess seemed to notice Sakura at last, and huffed a little. "Right this way," she said, collecting two menus and leading them through the throng of other diners to a table in the back, by the window. "Your waitress will be with you shortly," she added, handing them their menus, and then she was gone.

"You must get tired of that, huh?" Sakura asked in a rare lighthearted moment with him, her green eyes shiny with amusement as she brushed her bangs to the side and out of her eyes. Her hair was still up in the messy ponytail she wore while she was working, and Sasuke found that the look suited her nicely, in a detached, clinical manner. She did have a very lovely neck. "Girls fawning all over you everywhere you go."

He smirked against his will – new Sakura wasn't afraid to tease him – and opened his menu even if he already knew what he was going to order. "Seems like you have the same problem," he remarked, nodding inconspicuously to a group of civilian boys in a corner table, all sending Sakura looks of longing. He could understand her appeal. Frustrating as she was, she had become very beautiful over the years.

She was smiling now, and it was very rare for her to smile in his presence without the buffer of Naruto, or Sai, or Kakashi, so he allowed himself a few seconds to enjoy the temporary harmony between them before getting down to business.

"Sakura," he said, and now he wasn't quite sure how to proceed. He really should have thought about this earlier, how he was going to broach the subject to her without starting a fight. She had a short temper and where she was concerned, he had an embarrassingly short fuse. How was he going to handle this?

Her smile faded, her expression becoming more serious. "So what's so important?" she pressed. "What did you and Naruto find today, before you switched out with Sai?"

"I know," he said flatly, seeing no other way of going about it. At her confused expression, he sighed and finished, "I know about your parents."

She froze.

"Why didn't you tell me before?" he demanded.

She opened her mouth to respond, when they were interrupted by the arrival of their waitress.

"Can I get you guys something to drink?" she asked cheerily.

"Just…green tea, please," Sakura murmured distractedly. "For both of us."

"Sure thing!" the waitress replied, hurrying off to fetch tea for them, and Sasuke stared expectantly at Sakura from across the table. She sighed and glanced out the window at the steady rainfall, and Sasuke got the impression that while she was sitting two feet away from him, she was somewhere else entirely inside.

"Sakura, _why._"

"I didn't…think you'd care," she admitted.

His lip curled in displeasure, but Sakura wasn't finished. "I didn't know about your family until after…well, everything that happened in Lightning," she added evasively. Sasuke's stomach turned at the reminder of what had happened between them in Lightning, and he tamped down the fiery guilt in favor of hearing Sakura's explanation. "And once I did…I think I understood you a little better. Not all the way. I don't think anybody can understand anybody else all the way. But things you did, choices you made that I just couldn't _get_ before, started to make more sense."

"All the more reason why you should've _told_ me," he murmured, ignoring the waitress as she returned to their table with a simmering teapot and two teacups on a tray in her hands.

"Just hear me out," she snapped. "If you really want to know what was going through my head, then be quiet and listen to me for once!"

Sasuke said nothing in reply – now was not the time to fight with her – and she continued. "The Elders thought that…after Lightning…you escaped, alive, after killing Danzou, even though Naruto, Kakashi and I all tried to…stop you. They thought it was suspicious that you'd survive an attack from all three of us together, and since no one was there to see what happened between you and Danzou except Karin-san, they thought that I was an accessory."

His worst fears were confirmed.

"They sent my parents out into the line of fire," Sakura murmured, her eyes glossing over, but no tears fell. Her grip around her teacup trembled slightly, but beyond that, she was a pillar of poise across the table. "When they were evacuating the civilians at the start of the war. Somehow everyone made it out except Mom and Dad...they were dispatched straight into the line of fire. They had no chance of survival. Died on my operating table, I couldn't save them, not even Tsunade-shishou could. And there was never any real proof, but I _know._ I know, Sasuke. They were punishing me. They thought I helped you kill Danzou, and they had to punish me."

"You had nothing to do with it," Sasuke snarled, his chilled anger with the Elders reigniting.

"It looked bad," Sakura sighed. "It wasn't any secret, you know. That I had feelings for you."

He stiffened at the reminder, but she didn't dwell on it. "But I didn't tell you, because…"

"Because you didn't trust me," Sasuke finished, unable to keep the ice out of his voice, because even if he deserved Sakura's wariness, he damn sure resented it. "Because you didn't think I'd _care._ Because…"

"Because I didn't want you to leave again," Sakura snapped.

He froze. Forgetting where he was, his mission to keep vigilant, all the other patrons in the restaurant, everything vanished in the wake of Sakura's admission. He hadn't expected _that,_ at _all,_ from Sakura, who'd only ever treated him with wariness and suspicion since his return last year.

"What do you mean?" he asked cautiously.

She was clearly pissed, mostly with herself, as she looked away again. "We'd just gotten you back," she mumbled. "All of us. Naruto, and Sai, and Kakashi-sensei, and the rest of the rookies…things felt, like, right again. And you were…you made so much progress, and I didn't want you to go away again. I didn't want to lose you again. None of us did. And I thought that…that if you knew about my mom and dad…it might give you one more reason to turn your back on Konoha."

* * *

**note..** i know, i know. a long wait for the transition chapter nobody likes, but i PROMISE a lot of action next chapter, pinky swear. i needed to set up the whole sasuke-and-sakura-having-common-ground thing first.

let me know if you liked it! i'll update soon, promise.

xoxo daisy :)


	8. Attack

Sasuke's head spun with the knowledge of what he'd just learned.

There was no lie in Sakura's eyes as she admitted her reasoning for keeping him in the dark about her parents. If anything, she looked furious with herself for confessing, but honest all the same. He'd been prepared for something, anything else, her continued hatred of him for abandoning Konoha, her distrust of him for his resolve to kill her in the past, but this? Fear that he might leave her again?

That was one outcome he had _not_ been expecting from his hot-and-cold teammate.

She looked everywhere but at him, fuming to herself over what she'd let slip. He remembered her slightly creepy, one-sided conversations with herself from her younger years, and it looked like much the same situation: like she was arguing fiercely with nobody in a silent battle of wills.

"You should've told me sooner," he muttered, still feeling cheated somehow, though slightly mollified. It had been years since Sasuke could have called himself Sakura's favorite, but hearing it straight from the horse's mouth that it _mattered_ to her whether he stayed in Konoha or left had a seed of something frightfully close to _hope_ blossoming in his stomach.

"It's not like you ever asked, you know," she said somewhat coolly. "I wasn't aware you even knew I _had_ a family." Then her demeanor changed completely at his somewhat guilty stare, and her eyes softened. "That, and it's not like I liked to broadcast things like that to you and Naruto and Kakashi-sensei. Back when I was younger, I always thought that…well, since none of you had families anymore…it would've been rubbing salt in the wound."

Sasuke had never realized Sakura had felt that way before. He'd always just assumed that, like every other spoiled little girl who still had both parents alive and well, she took them for granted, wrote them off for hassling her about typical parent-child arguments and never spoke about them just because they got on her nerves the way parents do. He never really thought that Sakura might have been holding herself back out of sensitivity towards her teammates' family situations.

It was like turning a diamond in the light, each revelation that Sakura provided. Each subtle motion cast the atmosphere between them in a different glow, and he got the feeling that, for the first time, maybe _ever,_ he was starting to understand the teammate who remained entirely mysterious to him throughout their whole lives.

"But now that they're gone," she said, half-wistful, half-sad as she took another sip of her tea, "I kind of wish I'd told you guys about them." A bitter smile twisted her lips and the look didn't suit her at all; Sasuke felt an acrimonious guilt stir in his gut, fresh this time, different from the old self-loathing he would feel whenever Sakura shied away from him at practice, whenever her once-sunny gaze would dim when he looked her way.

Her parents' murders were his fault. He might as well have slit their throats himself. The Elders – his hatred sprung forth in boiling hot waves at the very thought of them – had wrongfully assumed that Sakura was an accessory to his assassination of Danzou. Perhaps they thought that they were next on his list, and that if they couldn't reach Sasuke, they would have to send a message to his kunoichi ally.

Of course Sakura hated him. Of course Sakura didn't trust him. How could she, knowing that it was thanks to him that her mother and father were dead?

And if there was one thing Uchiha Sasuke understood better than anything else, it was the all-consuming need for _revenge_ you felt when everything you loved was taken away from you.

"I don't blame you, Sasuke," Sakura said gently, and his eyes snapped back to her face. Was he really that transparent? Then again, for all of their differences, Sakura had always shown a surprising perception when it came to him. There hadn't been anyone else on a moonlit road out of Konoha that night so many years ago, hoping to stop him from making the first in a series of tumultuous mistakes…

"You should," he ground out.

Wasn't that always Sakura's problem? Loving what she shouldn't, forgiving what shouldn't be forgiven? Never laying blame with the person who deserves it most?

"No, I shouldn't," she said harshly. "You didn't know. I'm not condoning what you did, but I sure as hell understand your reasoning for it. But you didn't send two innocent civilians out to their deaths just to convey a message." Her voice strengthened, even as they kept their conversation hushed so no one would overhear them in the crowded restaurant. "Even if I _was_ guilty of helping you out with Danzou, that would never have justified what they did to my parents. And that right there, Sasuke? That's what I'm trying to stop back in Konoha."

"Not revenge," Sasuke said slowly. "Justice."

"Exactly. And it's why I came to you first."

"Because you think I owe you for what happened."

"_No._ God, it's like you _refuse_ to listen to me. I came to you because I know you'd understand the way I'm feeling."

"You think I understand that?" he almost laughed. "You're handling this a hell of a lot better than I did."

"Am I?" she countered, raising a slender pink eyebrow. "Sasuke I'm _angry_."

He watched her expression change, her eyes glaze over, like she was reliving a thousand memories he wasn't around for. To hear Sakura, a girl he'd only ever known to possess a sweet disposition, punctuated by a few moments of annoyance whenever Naruto was around, express such hostility was startling.

"I'm _so_ angry, all the time, it's like a slow burn inside me and whenever I think about how I'm still _working_ for them, how I'm _serving_ the very people who had my _innocent family_ slaughtered just to send a _message…_it feels like fire in my veins and that I'm just gonna…"

_Snap,_ Sasuke finished in his head. She was revealing more and more of herself to him in this busy restaurant, and the more she spoke, the more he found they had in common.

"Snap," Sakura breathed. "And…and I'm _trying_ to work through it but it's so hard. And it's not like this is a common problem I can talk to just _anybody_ about, but you…I saw it all happen before, with you, and I don't want to live in a village where this kind of thing will happen _again._ It can't keep going on like this, Sasuke. I can't take it."

He could do a lot of things right now.

He could tell her he still thought she was crazy to be planning an indictment of the Konoha Elders, because he did. Even if he could understand her motivation now, he couldn't think of anything in life worth losing Haruno Sakura for. Not even justice.

He could tell her he would help her, support her, be her first ally in her crusade, because whether or not it was crazy, she'd won his implicit loyalty with a handful of whispered confessions in a crowded Ame café.

He could tell her he was sorry, sorrier than he'd ever been, except for when his brother fell at his hands one horrible sunlit day in the mountains, at what she'd suffered, what she'd lost, thanks to him. That he knew what it was like to live your life with holes in it that couldn't be filled, and that he never, ever wanted her to know that kind of agony, and that he was _sorry._

But he knew, deep down, that nothing he could say would take Sakura's pain away. No stiff, awkward apology he could make would give her back what she'd lost. And Sakura had never been the kind of girl to need to hear the words _I'm sorry,_ even when she deserved them. Had he _ever_ apologized to her, in all the years he'd known her?

Instead, Sasuke finished the rest of his tea and asked quietly, humbly, "What did your parents do for a living?"

The look of muted astonishment was nothing next to Sakura's soft, sweet, grateful smile. For the first time in a long time, there was no guarded restraint in her stormy eyes, no stiffness, no animosity between them. But she didn't address the cataclysmic shift in the atmosphere between them, and neither did he. Instead, she finished her tea, too, and replied, "My mother was a scientist. And my father was a librarian. He ran the civilian library, down by the river."

He didn't expressly tell her that he was now her sovereign ally on this suicide mission, but somehow, he was certain that she knew.

* * *

"So you think Tsunade-shishou sent us out here to get us out of Konoha," Sakura said slowly, as they headed through the rain back to their hotel. Now that he said something, it was starting to make more and more sense, and it seemed like the kind of conniving trick her mentor was capable of. Normally, she would be furious to know that someone else was pulling the strings without giving her all the information, but she knew that Tsunade was only ever looking out for her. And in the last few motherless months of her life, she'd be lying if she said she resented an older, maternal figure who cared about her wellbeing.

"I only told her, and you, about what I was kicking around," she went on. "You don't think someone overheard us?"

"Hn. Don't know. But if she sent you out here, then she must be concerned."

"Then I wonder if she sent the others out on missions as well."

"Others?"

"Guess I never got that far in my plan with you," she said dryly, but he caught the teasing tone in her voice that outweighed her frustration. "Part two of my crazy idea was to replace the Konoha Council entirely, and to do so with the Konoha 12."

Sasuke scoffed.

"Yeah, _right,_ Sakura. Like they'd put me in a position of power this soon after letting me out of _prison._"

"You were _pardoned,_" she said fiercely. "Those were the terms of your sentence and you met them. Besides, it was my understanding that the Konoha Military Police Force was populated by members of the Uchiha Clan."

Out of the corner of her eye, she made out the tightening of Sasuke's jaw as he weighed her words, the way his grip hardened on his sword as they moved purposefully down an empty side street. Not for the first time, she cursed the thrill of butterflies that exploded in her stomach as she imagined Sasuke's strong hands locked tight around _her_ instead of his precious _sword._

Furious with herself for even entertaining the notion, she plowed ahead.

"We're a good cross-section, you know," she said eagerly. "Of everything Konoha has. We're all active shinobi and kunoichi, so we're out there every day in the action instead of just reading about it in mission reports. We're…"

"We're _teenagers,_" Sasuke finished bitterly. "And that'll be their argument. If you're that eager for a promotion, you could just ask Tsunade."

"Tch, I'm not in this to spruce up my resume'," she sniffed, knowing he was just prodding her to get a reaction. "I already told Shishou that if people thought I was trying to elevate myself into a position of power just for personal gain, then to leave me out of it. I don't need to be on that council, but picture it. A group of active, well-rounded shinobi each with different strengths and specialties, elected democratically and working in the best interests of the village. A new Konoha."

Sasuke had agreed – in unspoken words – to help her in her mission, rather than impede it as he'd been doing. If that was Tsunade-shishou's goal, to force them to work together by throwing them on this asinine mission under false pretenses, then she'd succeeded immensely. Sakura felt an unbelievable burst of confidence knowing that Uchiha Sasuke was now on her side, not to mention a lightened burden on her shoulders she hadn't even realized she'd been wanting to shed until it was gone. Now Sasuke knew the truth about her parents, and hopefully he understood that she didn't blame him for it in the least.

It hadn't driven them apart. It hadn't driven Sasuke to madness again, hadn't sent him out of the village in disgust and revulsion.

It had brought them closer together.

"Well," she said diplomatically, trying to tamp down her sudden elation at the monumental shift taking place between them, "we should send word back to Konoha, then. I have most of the wounded stabilized at the hospital, which takes care of my half of the mission…I wonder if Naruto and Sai were able to figure out anything strange about Ame's new Kage…"

* * *

"Nothin'!" Naruto groaned, and Sasuke sighed, trying to focus on the comforting heat of the hot spring instead of his dumbass teammate's loud, frustrated voice. "We got nothin'! Nobody here seems to know much of _anything_ about Aoi, _or_ the mine crash, _or_ what's going on. What are we supposed to report back to baachan, huh?"

"That we didn't find anything suspicious," Sakura's thoughtful voice called quietly, from behind the fence, in the women's section. "Maybe there really isn't anything suspicious to find."

Sasuke didn't like discussing mission strategy in a hot spring, especially when their kunoichi captain was separated from them by a fence, but a quick stealth genjutsu ensured that they wouldn't be overheard. Sai had drawn up a few ink mice to patrol the hot springs in case of a possible intruder, but Sasuke never relaxed his guard. It was hard to unclench his muscles. He'd done almost nothing for two days but lift unruly patients for Sakura to operate on and wander aimlessly around a rainy village. He felt like he was going stir-crazy.

It was a very nice hot spring, though. Two pools divided by a thick wooden fence, natural hot water creating a calming layer of steam on the surface; trees lined the sides, concealing the bathers from view of the rest of the inn's guests as slick rocks rimmed the borders. A good place for Sakura, the only one of them to have expended significant chakra energy on this mission, to rest and recover her strength.

"What d'you mean by that, Sakura-chan?" Naruto asked, confused. He swam to one end of the pool and rested his elbows on the rocks, deep in thought. "You think it really was just an accident, the mine collapsing? And baachan's worked up about nothin'?"

"I think that if we don't have any proof that it was anything but, then poking around here is a waste of our time," she replied. "We've all spent so many years trying to look underneath the underneath and everything, and it's made us overly suspicious. Cynical, even. Maybe we're expecting to find something suspicious with the new Kage and the new regime here, just because before the war, it was status quo."

She had a point. All of them were disillusioned, in a sense; he'd watched Sakura plunge her arms into the chest cavity of a wounded miner without so much as a wince, even when blood had sprayed across her cheek and soaked her hair. He couldn't remember anymore how many shinobi he'd mowed down on missions, both for Konoha and for Orochimaru, and knew that Naruto and Sai had to have similar body counts on their hands. Having seen so much violence, so much betrayal in their pasts, maybe they couldn't trust in the possibility of a true ally in Ame, instead of an old enemy.

Their instructions were clear: to stay here until Sakura had healed the wounded at the hospital. Get a read on the new Kage, and what his subjects thought of him. Then come home.

"Sai, send a message to Tsunade-shishou that our mission is complete, and we're on our way home first thing in the morning," Sakura's voice called from behind the fence. "I'm gonna head back to the hospital tonight to check on my patients, give some departing instructions to the other doctors, and…"

Abruptly, her voice cut off, replaced with a sharp intake of breath and the splash of water.

Sasuke's eyes widened.

"Oi, Sakura-chan!" whined Naruto, oblivious as ever from one corner of the hot spring. "Now's not the time to rinse your hair, what about your orders?"

"Dobe!" Sasuke snapped, standing up out of the water in a second, a towel tied tight around his waist. His Sharingan activated automatically, and he directed his attention to what was happening in the women's side of the spring.

His ultra-honed senses picked up the presence of three foreign chakra signatures besides Sakura's. Their chakra was too refined to belong to civilian women who might be dipping into the hotel spring.

"Sakura-chan!" Naruto yelped, finally understanding what was happening as all of them reassembled their ranks on the rocks that bordered the water.

It was an attack. Hostile chakra signatures converging on a sole kunoichi, whose chakra levels were lower than average after two days of constant healing…

"Three-man shinobi cell!" Sai declared, his ink mice blinking out of existence after returning their information to their creator. "Hostile, jonin-level chakra!"

Sasuke seized his sword from where it lay on the rocks by the pool and prepared to take down the fence, but found that quite unnecessary in the next instant. Sakura let out a familiar cry and he felt the surge of her chakra as one of the shinobi advancing on her was punched right through the wooden boards divided the men and women's sides. With a shout of pain, he hit the hot water they'd just vacated.

"Sai, take him!" Sasuke shouted. "Naruto!"

"Got it, man!" Naruto yelled back, immense chakra funneling through his body as he created twenty clones of himself in a flash of hand gestures. "LET'S GO!"

Their teamwork was as flawless as ever, even dressed only in towels and soaking wet. With a flourish of his pen, three ink serpents slithered like lightning off Sai's scroll, streaking into the water after the shinobi Sakura had punched; in seconds, he was bound by their inky scales head to foot as Sai launched himself at him with chakra restraints. Naruto's clones flung themselves at the two remaining assailants, their sheer numbers overpowering one of the tall, dark-clad shinobi, but he underestimated the speed of the last.

Sasuke almost smirked. This was exactly what he needed, reckless and dangerous as it was: a battle. Something to wake up his muscles and blow off some steam. These shinobi were incredibly foolish, to attempt to attack Team 7 on their own. He pinned the final shinobi with a fierce glare, raising his sword, about to engage…

At the last minute, however, the third enemy shinobi, wielding two handfuls of senbon, redirected his attention to Sakura. A death wish, Sasuke registered grimly, as the shinobi flung poison needles at Sakura, crouched defensively on the rocks by the women's pool, no weapon in her hands.

_Damn it._

Sasuke didn't slow his attack, but his mind registered something unsavory: this wasn't an attack on Team 7.

It was an attack on _Sakura._

The interest he'd held in this fight a second ago evaporated, morphing into white-hot anger. Few things these days could provoke the rage he'd clung to for so many years, but someone threatening the lives of the people he held dear – namely, his frustrating kunoichi teammate who was starting to make more and more sense lately – was one of them. He felt the vicious surge of his own chakra as he flashstepped between the shinobi and Sakura; with a wave of his sword too fast to be seen, he'd deflected all twelve of the poison-tipped senbon from their intended target.

"Sasuke, don't kill him!" Sakura hissed quickly from behind him. He felt her hand grip his bicep, and to his astonishment, felt his murderous intent bleed out of his muscles as clarity overtook his anger. Killing these shinobi – while rewarding – would leave Team 7 in the dark as to their identities and purpose. He needed to find out who they were, where they were from, and why they'd attacked Sakura.

"These two are out, Teme!" Naruto called from behind them, referring to two of the cellmates that he and Sai had taken down. That left one for interrogation.

Sasuke smirked, watching the conscious enemy shinobi pale as he realized his mistake. But as he raised his sword again, Sakura beat him to it. She ducked out from behind him in a flash of pink hair and residual moisture from the hot spring, and had the last shinobi on his back, her knee digging into the hollow of his throat, in an instant.

Sasuke had to admit, it was not exactly the Haruno Sakura of memory, this deadly-fast, lethal kunoichi. She didn't seem to mind at _all_ that she was almost completely naked, concealed only by a flimsy, soaking-wet towel. Instead, her instincts, like his and Sai's and Naruto's, had kicked in even at such a vulnerable time and she flipped the switch. Beautiful and deadly in equal measure, it was like turning the diamond again. Finding a new light to see her in.

"Who are you?" she demanded of the shinobi, who lay choking and writhing on the damp rocks, pinned by a 90-pound kunoichi with fire in her eyes. "Who are you working for?"

She applied greater pressure with her knee to his throat.

"OI!" Naruto yelled suddenly. "Don't let him kill himself!"

Sasuke's head snapped back in Naruto's direction, to where the two shinobi he and Sai had incapacitated now lay twitching and spasming on the ground, foam dripping from their mouths. His eyes widened as he realized what happened.

"It's cyanide capsules!" he snapped.

It was a last-resort move for a shinobi who was about to be interrogated: suicide. They couldn't let the last cellmate die until they'd milked him for information.

Sakura flung out both her hands, seizing the enemy shinobi's wrists and pinning them ruthlessly to his sides so he couldn't reach his suicide capsule the way his fellows had. "I don't think so," she snarled, her voice menacing and seductive in equal measure. "_Who are you working for?_"

"Y-You'll go the s-same way as your _parents,_ kunoichi," he gagged, eyes bulging when Sakura applied nearly enough pressure to break his neck in her fury. She leaned in close to his ear, and Sasuke watched the enemy shinobi's body stiffen in response. Even two seconds from death, men were still so _weak,_ susceptible to a woman's wiles and physique; his lip curled as his grip on Kusanagi tightened, ready to slay the enemy if the interrogation got out of hand.

"What do _you_ know about my _parents?_" Sakura asked smoothly, and Sasuke was somewhat taken aback at the killing intent injected into her normally balmy voice.

The enemy shinobi let out a gurgling laugh, and she loosened the pressure she was applying with her knee enough to let him speak.

"Plenty," he spat, glaring up at her with a manic grin on his face. "Enough to know they deserved what they got, bringing a _filthy, traitorous whore_ into the world!"

Sasuke moved in an instant. If there was one thing he had become quite adept at recognizing over the years, it was a shinobi's dying declaration. Remembering his fights with Deidara, Madara, even Itachi, he knew exactly what a desperate man's last words sounded like. And just because he couldn't reach the cyanide capsule in the shoulder pocket of his unmarked jacket didn't mean he didn't have another suicide option. And he doubted anyone else had glimpsed the explosive tag attached to the enemy's hip.

His hand closed around her bicep and with a fierce tug, he ripped her off of her captive, throwing her behind him. In the same movement, he drove his foot into the enemy shinobi's side, sending him careening over the rocks and into the hot water.

"Get down!" he shouted, flashstepping to Sakura's side; he pressed her back against the stone wall, shielding her with his body as the explosive tag detonated.

A massive explosion rocked the entire hot spring; water evaporated into clouds of boiling steam as the rocks lining the pools were blown apart. When the commotion died down, he threw a look over his shoulder, and saw that what little water remained that hadn't been evaporated by the explosion now ran ruby red with blood. All that remained of the third enemy.

"ARE YOU GUYS OKAY?" Naruto shouted from the men's side, all of his clones vanishing as he ran to check on his teammates.

"We're fine!" Sakura gasped. "An explosive tag…I'm so glad you saw it, Sasuke!"

"Hn."

It was a bit hard to think with her pressed so intimately against him, both of them clad only in thin, wet towels. Her bangs hung in her wide green eyes, dripping with water, her bare legs locked with his. Relief coursed through him that she was all right, and with all the fortitude in the world, he stepped back to give her room to breathe.

"They were after _you,_" he said fiercely. "Not the team. Their primary directive was to take you out."

Sakura blinked as she processed the information, then turned to Sai.

"Sai!" she called. "Check them! See if you can figure out who they are!"

"Sakura-chan, you're okay!" Naruto exclaimed when he reached them, seizing her in a fierce hug. Sasuke decided he didn't much like seeing a shirtless Naruto wrapped up around Sakura so sweetly, but pushed the thought out of his mind. They had bigger things to worry about. "See? I told you there was something fishy about this place!"

"An Ame nin squad?" Sakura mused, when Naruto put her back down. She seized her towel before it slipped and tightened it around her chest. "For what purpose?"

"It wasn't Ame, Sakura," Sai said suddenly, kneeling beside one of the poisoned enemies. The corpse's pack was unloaded, and Sai was holding what looked like a hitai-ate in his hand.

Sasuke didn't like the way he said that; Sai never referred to Sakura by her given name unless it was serious. They all joined him at the body's side as he revealed what he'd found, his expression even colder than usual.

Sasuke's eyes widened; he heard Sakura gasp beside him, and Naruto mutter a low, disbelieving, "No way," one his other side.

"An assassination squad," Sai intoned darkly.

In Sai's hand was a hitai-ate…with a leaf inscribed in the metal.

"…from _Konoha._"

* * *

**note..** hey y'all. how's your weekend so far?

xoxo daisy :)


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